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WESTWARD T O M E C C A

A JOURNEY OF ADVENTURE THROUGH AFGHANISTAN, BOLSHE VZK ASIA, PERSIA, IRAQ & HIjAZ TO THE CRADLB OF ISLAM

BY

SIRDAR IKBAL ALI SHAH A U T H O R OF " A F G H A N I S T A N O F 1'1114: A F G H A N S "

W I T H PHOTOGRAPFIS

\.*., ,,

H. F. &? G. W I T H E R B Y 326 High HoZborn, London, W C.1

I 928

DEDZCA TZON

HAD ISLAM PERMITTED ANCESTOR WORSHIP / WOULD H A Y B LAID MY FOREHEAD UPON M Y FATHER'S FEET; I N T H E ABSENCE THEREOF I BEG TO DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO HIM AS A HUMBLE OFFERING FOR DEEP SPIRITUAL 7 ' E A C H I N G D U R I N G M Y CHILDHOOD DAYS

PrAlrd for Mrnrr. IY. F. & G. WilAorby by NrrrtAurr~Frr.larrd Prurr L td . , Nnurarllr-on-Tynr

PREFACE

FOR thirteen long centuries of world's history Mecca remains the one place in the entire globe where none but the Moslims can enter. Generations of Moslim people have bowed their heads to it five times a day during their lives, and annually millions, representing every colour and clime, undertake the pilgrimage under the grilling heat to the Holy City. With their shaven heads, and clad only in one white sheet, the faithful encircle the mystic Kaaba and cling to its black curtains, while the immense colonnades of the shrine stand drenched with the holiness of centuries.

Every Moslim should visit Mecca at least once during his lifetime, and it was this Grail of my heart I wished to see. So to it I journeyed, on foot, by caravan, through fertile regions of India and the parched tracts of the desert; taking advantage of every means of progress; meeting the amusing, thrilling, even perilous, experiences to have a glimpse of Mecca-the Cradle of Islam.

5

6 PREFACE

What follows is an account of this protracted journey. Each experience and episode that came my way was but a link in the chain of endeavour to attain to that one great goal.

I . A. S.

CONTENTS

PREFACE CHAP.

I. ADVENTURES IN THE HIMALAYAS . 11. THE DANGER TRAIL O F THE FRONTIER

111. HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS O F AFGHANISTAN . (IV. AFGHAN WOMEN

V. THE MAGIC HOUSE IN AN AFGHAN GLEN . VI. IN RED TURKESTAN .

VII . THROUGH KHIVA, BOKHARA AND SAMARKAND

VII I . ESCAPE FROM CENTRAL ASIA

I X . OMAR AND SHAKESPEARE . X. THE INFLEXIBLE PERSIA

XI . THE HUMAN OIL CURE

X I I . THE KINGDOM OF BAGHDAD . XIII . MECCA AT LAST

INDEX .

LIST ILLUSTRATIONS A S T R E E T I N M E C C A .

Z A K A K H A l L A F R I D I T R I B E S M E N

I N T H E K H Y B E R P A S S . F O R T I F I E D V I L L A G E S I N T H E K H Y B E R P A S S . R E D K A F I R S O F K A F R I S T A N . M A R K E T S C E N E I N B O K H A R A . H I S M A J E S T Y R A Z A S H A H P A H L A V I . P A L A C E O F T H E K I N G O F P E R S I A

A T Y P I C A L K U R D I S H F A Q l R . T H E S H l A S H R I N E O F K A Z I M A N

T H E S H R I N E O F T H E B L A C K S T O N E , M E C C A . AN A R A B H O U S E I N H l J A Z

S H R I N E O F T H E KABA I N M E C C A

Ftvn tispiece Facing Pngc

. 5 0

C H A P T E R I

ADVENTURES IN THE HIMALAYAS

THE Moslim pilgrims of Central Asia either chose the land- or the sea-route to Mecca, but a very little

known fact is that if the faithful takes the longest route he has a higher spiritual reward. The sea-

route is by way of Karachi or Bombay in India, and the one by land through Afghanistan, Persia, Iraq

and the desert to the City of Allah.

I chose the former road because an Indian Prince, in exchange for my services, was willing to take me

up to Port Sudan, from where I could cross the Red Sea to Jeddeh in a day. Also that was the quickest route. In the meantime I was to be in the employ

of the Prince, but at the eleventh hour he changed his mind as to a visit to England, and I was therefore left with no option but to trek by land; frequently kneeling at the holy shrines of Bokhara, Meshad and Kerbela on my long route, thus acquiring much merit

as a pilgrim. As to how tortuous my route became is but another

I I

12 WESTWARD TO MECCA

proof of the fact that fate guides men's destinies, and

that fate is inexplicable.

T h e life in an Indian State having thus thrown

me out of my route I left it with relief, and betook

myself to Lahore in North India. It was stiflingly

hot in Lahore. Those who have had experiencUe of

the close and hot atmosphere of the monsoon-time on

the Indian plains will understand what that means.

One seems always to be having a Turkish bath,

and the process grows monotonous, especially when

one has become limp and depressed, and seems

to have exuded the last atom of energy and cheer- f ulness.

My thoughts turned fondly to the cool uplands of Afghanistan ; the Himalayas where the thermometer

drops rapidly at night and refreshing sleep comes to

the weary. And towaras that great wall of mountains that stand between India and China I bent my steps.

In India there are millions who constantly dream of the Himalayas, and long to see them before they die,

because, to the Hindu, the mountains have religious

associations. Somewhere beyond the great peaks and sublime ranges lies Swarga, the Paradise of Indra, the god who slays each year the Demon of Drought and calls for rain with a voice which men refer to as thunder.

I N THE HIMALAYAS I 3

Then happily I met an old friend of my father,

who had been asked to call on me. This was

Mohammed Yusuf, a native of Bokhara, who had

fought against the Russians when they invaded his

country, and fled from it a refugee, for he was a marked man. Although old in years he was energetic

and wiry, and not only was he a perfect mountaineer

but he knew the language of more than one hill tribe;

he knew, besides, many a secret by-way among the

mountains. H e was paying a business visit to Lahore. " If

you stay here," said he, " you will be baked to a cinder."

I smiled and nodded languidly. Cinder seemed the right word; a hot, dry one. But ere we reached coolness, however, we made a journey by train through dust and heat.

In time, however, our faces were turned towards

the glorious Karakum range of mountains. We had to cross that portion of the Western Himalayas which lies north of the Punjab, south of Tibet, west of

Bhutan and east of Cashmere. This is the region where, of old, India came in touch with the Empire of China, and through which the Buddhist mission- aries travelled to teach the strange doctrines of

their saint as far back as the days of the Hebrew

I 4 W E S T W A R D TO MECCA

prophet Isaiah. This way, too, came, and still

comes, another lot of folk from the opposite direction.

These are the Chinese smugglers. They favoured

the Kangra valley to the south, and through it

brought on ponies loads of wool which was

transferred afterwards to the Punjab. This wool-

smuggling business should be of interest because it

laid the basis of the world-wide trade in the famous

Cashmere shawls. Bad roads and heavy duties have

hindered the proper development of this industry on legal lines.

The mention of shawls reminds me that we had

left the oven-like atmosphere of Lahore far behind and were cool, happy and full of energy, enjoying the mountains as only mountaineers can. Often, at

morning and evening, Mohammed Yusuf, when he lit his cigarette, would say, " We'll have to light something bigger before long." We both smiled,

thinking of what we had left. The " something bigger " was a cave-fire.

Up, up we went, up and also down. We had

reached a great " table land " with mountains crop- ping up on it like warts, and deep gorges that

seemed like old cracks in a table. Sometimes we

climbed two thousand feet, only to find that we had

to descend four thousand, and then had to face a

I N THE HIMALAYAS

still greater climb from the very feet of the mountains to their shoulders. Our first real obstacle,

however, was the river Beas which glorifies very

wild scenery. Here we enjoyed a cool bathe in a safe pool,

thinking of Lahore and pitying everyone there. And what energy it gave us! One felt one could

climb a ladder reaching to the moon, if necessary. But our immediate problem was how to cross the

river. Boating was out of the question, owing to the wildness of the waters and the want of boats.

A couple of natives, however, conducted us to what

is called " a safe crossing-place." It did not look particularly safe, but Mohammed Yusuf assured me

there was nothing to fear. We were to cross by a Jhula, or rope bridge. This bridge consisted of

eight or nine ropes attached to poles on either side

of the river. Along the ropes slides a suspended

seat which is drawn backwards and forwards. The passenger balances himself in the seat, holds on like grim death, and, if he is a novice, shuts his eyes as

the seat rocks and jolts in dizzy space. I opened my eyes when half-way across and promptly shut

them again. Then I scolded myself for being afraid and tried to enjoy myself even when the seat stuck

for a moment and had to be jolted backward and sent

16 W E S T W A R D TO MECCA

spinning ahead again at a run. I crossed safely and

felt happy when I was on firm ground again. I t was good to be alive !

We had now entered on real Alpine land. High, stern, tremendous cliffs bordered yawning passes

and charming green valleys seemed to be scooped

out at the most unexpected places. There were no jungles, but, instead, wonderful and beautiful groves

of poplars in somewhat damp localities. Think of

glimpses of miles and miles of these stately trees,

which in the twilight, seemed to be alive as a breeze

shivered through them, and they nodded their bushy

heads and swayed their stumpy arms against the soft, dim sky.

North-eastward we went until we reached the town of Kulu. Here we felt that we were in a

strange country indeed, so strange were the people

and their customs. The women, who are darkish- brown in complexion, have long anticipated the English munition workers of war-time days for they

all wear breeches and work as hard, perhaps harder, than men. They are very energetic and strong.

We had another river to cross, but not on a rope- bridge : nor were there boats, that is, ordinary boats,

on the ferries. I was amazed to find that the means of crossing rivers were as ancient as Nimrod, " the

I N THE HIMALAYAS I 7

mighty hunter." One of my friends a t Lahore was

an archreologist and he had shown me an English

book of ancient history which had photographs of

old Mesopotamian sculptures that depict Assyrian

soldiers crossing the river Euphrates on skin floats in the days of the Hebrew prophets. Here, in this

strange land, the ancient Assyrian skin-floats are still in use.

Although the people do not look like Assyrians, or even like descendants of the " Ten Lost Tribes " who were made captives by the Assyrians, and for

whom so many people have been searching all over the globe.

The skins used were those of bullocks. I learned the process of making these floats from Mohammed Yusuf. T h e skin is flayed by first making an

incision in the back part of a hind leg. Then it is carefully removed as in the process of " casing a

hare," except that the skin is cut through below and round the knee and hocks, the legs being left adher-

ing to the body. The hide, when removed, is buried

for a few days so that the hair may come off easily when rubbed by the hand. Then the skin is turned outside in, dried and prepared. I t is afterwards

carefully treated so as to be made airtight. The open ends of the limbs are fastened and closed

B


securely, one being left open for inflating the skin.

Thin tar, produced from the deodar, is poured into

the skin, until it is thoroughly coated inside, then

the skin is tanned by steeping it in an infusion of

pomegranate husks. I actually saw men preparing floats and it was an interesting process.

When the skin-float is wanted for use the water-

man sits down and begins the slow and weary

process of blowing it up. Fancy having to inflate a motor tyre in this way ! And a bullock's skin is much larger than any tyre up among the mountains.

However, the men have large chests and great power (6 of " wind " as well as of limb. T h e river water-

man" is the only waterman in the world who provides wind for himself !

Then the waterman carries his boat on his back

as a snail does its " house," and it is launched. The

waterman knows how to balance himself in the river,

and how to use, with one hand, a short oar whilst he

may also paddle with the other hand. I t looks easy until you try.

If a heavy load has to be taken across a ferry two skins are used. T h e watermen are stripped bare, keeping only white cloths round the lower part of their bodies, and turbans on their heads. W e were

conveyed across as " luggage," and, fortunately, had

I N THE HIMALAYAS I9

an easy crossing. I t happens occasionally, however,

that a passenger gets a dip which is not as welcome

an experience there as it would be if it happened at

red-hot Lahore. I felt, as I went across the river

on the bobbing and pitching skins, like an Assyrian

traveller who was exploring an unknown world

long before river-boats were shaped out of

wood.

Having wild country to traverse we had to hire

carriers. Our luggage, and Mohammed Yusuf's

stock of things he bought and sold, were conveyed

by the " Paharees " (hill-men) who had " Khaltas " on their backs. These " Khaltas " are conical

baskets with flat bottoms, resembling somewhat the

fish baskets carried by the fish-wives of Newhaven

in Scotland. T h e "Khaltas" are strapped securely

on the backs of the hill coolies who go " up hill and

down dale " as if the " Khaltas " were as easily

carried as humps are by hunchbacks.

In places where no " Khaltas " were, or could be

carried, we hired men with hill ponies. These

sturdy little animals are very nimble and sure-footed.

There are no roads in the ordinary sense of the word,

even between villages, but only bridle paths which

are not always seen, and some gorges have only

goat-paths. I shiver to think of these goat-paths.

2 0 WESTWARD TO MECCA

The slopes we climbed were at times so steep that

we had to imitate the hill-men by holding on to a

pony's tail and allowing the little animal to drag us

up, a thing he did cheerfully and as a matter of

course. Now and again the intelligent pony looked

round as if to see if one was following on foot or on one's stomach. When it crossed a little gorge it

knew just how to jump and swerve so that the man

grasping its tail did not tumble or slip. They are truly wonderful and intelligent animals with tails

like steel ropes.

We were now well in among the Himalayas. The

air was more than delightfully cool. I t was at times,

especially at night, somewhat sharp. Rain fell at

least once a day, but almost every evening it cleared

u p and there were gorgeous sunsets. The weather

changes rapidly here. At one moment the sky is blue as sapphire, then suddenly it darkens with heavy masses of clouds which send down a drenching torrent of rain. But as suddenly as it darkens the

sky breaks and clears again, and everything glistens in dazzling sunshine.

Night comes on in great beauty, with stars of extraordinary lustre and vividness. I have tried to

write poems about them. Moonrise is a wonder never to be forgotten. The silvery light sweeps into

I N THE HIMALAYAS

black valleys suddenly, as the moon leaps up over a sharp mountain ridge, like a gigantic, gleaming shaft of light from a searchlight. You see the moon-

light sweeping rapidly along far below just like a

breeze of light, unfolding hidden wonders as it

goes. It was pleasant to travel in moonlight, especially

if the day had been stormy, and we had had to sleep

in a cave with a fire burning. Great-coats were absolutely necessary, for it was often very cold. Our

waterproofs were not much good by day, for the rain made them as useless as wet tissue paper in a few minutes, and at night they did not keep out the icy

wind. We were not free from rain until we had crossed,

partly over, and partly through by way of gorges, the tremendous and marvellous Himalayas.

Words cannot convey the beauty and glory of

these amazing mountains. You feel the silence; a silence that seems always to be sinking and growing

more intense. When it thunders the echoes repeat the peal's over and over again, until you are unable

to detect real peal from echo. A thunder-cloud thus seems to bombard you with a constant barrage. Winds are quite ghostly at night, for you hear the echoes of sudden blasts which sound very weirdly.


A gorge seems to be a haunted place. Now you hear groaning and screaming in the air above and the next

moment low, echoing moans far below you, as if

fettered dragons were growling in a rocky chasm and

were flapping their wings in an attempt to rise.

As we went on it grew colder and colder, until I

found myself wishing I had just one hour of Lahore.

Snow fell frequently and sometimes the flakes looked

as large as goose feathers. These accumulated

rapidly until the sun came out and made water run

in merry, little streams over rocks and shingle.

Leh was now not far off, but we were still among

the Himalayas, and in the region where the Hindu

religion prevails. We reached a hillock sacred to a

Hindu cult, and in this hillock, we were told, lived

a Guru. Our Hindu coolies prayed there and made

offerings of sugar, ghee, etc.

The sun was now shining brightly and the air was warm in this deep, pleasant valley, when slowly a

snake crept out of the hillock. T h e pious coolies

therefore returned and told us, with sparkling eyes,

that the god had made his appearance in answer to their prayers. They also tell us a legend about the

gods having fled out of India chased by the demons of heat and drought. The gods took refuge among

the Himalayas, where they placed serpents to guard

I N THE HIMALAYAS 23

the faithful who sojourned there, or went past on

a journey. On we plodded slowly, and it grew colder.

Beyond the serpent-guarded area the scenery 'became

wilder and grander. At times we had glimpses of

glaciers glistening in the bright sunshine. We were

high up now, and the country in this mid-Himalayan

region was Lahoul. Here we reached a river which we could not ford,

and so had to cross by a suspension bridge made of ropes of birch-twigs and basket-work. The bridge

looked frail and a sharp gust of wind caused it to

shiver, sway and make cracking sounds. Being old,

as well as frail, it was undoubtedly dangerous, and we had therefore to go warily, for if one jumped to clear

a hole one might make a very large hole indeed, and perhaps drop through it. I did not breathe freely until I was safely across. The natives are prou'd of their bridge and seem surprised if one should venture to criticize it. " I s it dangerous?" you ask.

" Certainly, sahib, it is 'dangerous, being a bridge. Whoever heard of a bridge that wasn't dangerous'? '?

One could only laugh, especially when disbelieved after 'describing a bridge of iron.

There are few villaqes ‘. in this area. In suitable spots the patches of good soil are well cultivate&


and women are the agriculturists, although it is not

war-time. These industrious women do all the work in the fields and in their houses, and as it is cold

during digging time they have to wear ear-caps as

a protection against the biting winds that sweep down

from the uplands of eternal snow. These women are not attractive. They grow wrinkled and haggard

very quickly. Yet, although hard and constant

workers, they have the usual feminine traits. Hair-

dressing is a speciality. They plait their locks over

their scalps and the tails hang down their backs

clasped with an ornament. In front they wear a broad, cloth band adorned with bits of coloured glass.

This covering is then drawn down behind and fastened by the clasp of the plait tails.

Most of the men are away all the summer transporting merchandise, but they spend the entire

winter at home, obeying their wives and honouring them greatly.

The marriage customs are extraordinary. Each

woman of Lahoul has at least two husbands. Some

women have three or four. The only trace in India

of this very much married state is in the sacred books

of the " Mahabharata " t h e " Old Testament " of the Hindus-which tells of a very charming queen

named Draupadi, who had five brothers for husbands.


The brothers are known as the Pandavas, and

scholars believe they must have come from this hill district as conquerors in ancient times.

Another extraordinary thing about Lahoul is that

it seems to have no definite religion. There are

strange and mysterious ceremonies, but no organized or established faith. Religion seems to be a matter

of personal or family fancy. There is more magic

than religion for there are no gods; just a vague sort of belief in a something, in a Power, or rather in Powers, which nobody can define or account for, and regarding which few are much concerned, excepting when something is wanted. Then one kills a goat, or does something out of the ordinary, and feels good.

This district is on the edge of the Buddhist country. From here we plodded on along the Karakum range and reached the great upland plain of Kyang, the loftiest plain in the world. Here we saw the black tents of nomads who engage in hunting wild horses. The scenery is very savage and

picturesque, and the air is cold. Snow fell on the first forenoon of our arrival, and in the afternoon, when the sun came out and shone brightly it was comparatively warm.

Gradually, as we pressed onward, we drew nigh


to the Leli province where Buddhist monks live in

lonely monasteries on the ledges of cliffs, and

summits of rocky eminences.

We went through the Tung Lung pass, and,

having crossed a shallow, prattling stream, reached

the village of Ghya. Here we saw wonderful

Buddhist monasteries perched in quaint, and some-

times unapproachable, places. T o the loftiest of

these monasteries the monks are pulled up in baskets

dangling at the end of ropes. The rocks are beauti-

ful, being of many colours and shades, and not so

monotonous as they appear in a pen-and-ink sketch.

On the ledges of a cone-shaped spire of rock we saw

a group of monasteries. These were inaccessible as

eagles' nests, and we gazed at them with astonishment.

Low, long buildings built of stone, and even roofed

with stone, they would look quaint even if on the level of the valley. As it was, they seemed to have

been lifted up on the crest of earth waves during an earthquake.

Each of the buildings is inscribed with the Buddhist motto,

OM MANI PADME HOM 0 Jewel of the lotus, Amen.

" How do the monasteries receive revenue'? " I


asked, and an informant, who smiled at my ignorance,

told of the unfailing supply of everything needed by the pious, and even of the important revenue derived by selling small stones, or bits of stones, from the

buildings, which are treasured by pilgrims and carried away long distances. The supply of loose stones is

easily kept up. In addition to the monasteries we

saw a number of small cloisters, pyramidal shape, where offerings are made. On these are painted the

serpent-dragons of Buddhism. These are called Nagas, and are really identical with the dragons of China and Japan. These Nagas have three forms ( I ) the serpent, (2) half human and half serpent and (3) entirely human with serpents curled round the

neck or in the hair. Various animals are sometimes combined with the serpent. The Naga is supposed to enter the Underworld through a well at which

there is a holy tree. Offerings are made at these wells, and wishes are wished at them. If you wait long enough you are supposed to see a form of the

dragon in the well, perhaps a worm or a fly. Then you are in luck.

We journeyed on through this strange land of

Buddhist influence which links India with China in the religious sense, till, one day, we reached a most

interesting group of sacred buildings on a steep and


rugged hillside. The largest one was comparatively low down, the others were on ledges; the highest

being the holiest.

In front of the lowest monastery was a row of

sacred poplars; an inner row was formed by square

towers with domes and short spires. The lower parts of the towers were painted white and a red stripe ran

from base to summit.

The monastery proper had two or three stories

and an open quadrangle in the middle. Flags were

fluttering on each corner of the building. As we

drew near we saw priests clad in red robes, red being

the sacred colour, pacing backward and forward, lost

in meditation. On their heads were mitre-like caps

placed well back. Their shoes were of sacred red, and each had a red rope attached to his girdle. Their

heads were completely shaven.

On asking about the higher monasteries we were told they had been abandoned on account of the cold.

T o these aged priests used to be hoisted up, and

there they underwent great austerities ; too great for human endurance, apparently.

I was specially interested in the praying-wheel which I had thought was a monoply of Tibet. The

cylinder was about ten feet in height and five or six in diameter. This one was turned by the priests, and


was believed to be specially effective on great

occasions. What tremendous prayers it must have

churned out ! Other praying-wheels were very small,

and were propelled by water. Still smaller praying-

wheels were carried in the right hands of monks

and kept revolving as they moved about. These

resembled the little " windmills " that children use

as toys. So delicately were they poised that the

least breath of air caused them to revolve.

I t was at Ludak, the town we were bound for,

that I had a chance of seeing the Buddhist monks

fully engaged in their strange religious observances.

These devotees come out in great force on occasion.

I t was a grand sight to watch, although a trifle noisy.

The chief priest tinkled a bell and, opening a book,

began to chant loudly and slowly. T h e measured

lines were repeated by those immediately behind him

and passed from row to row to the end.

Soon the chanting swelled into a very loud chorus,

and amidst the roar of voices trumpets were blown

triumphantly, brass cymbals were crashed like stage

thunder, and bells jingled loudly through the

confused din. Once or twice, as the procession drew

near where I stood, I closed my ears with my fingers.

The final crash of religious noise-making was

contributed by two immense trumpets built into the

WESTWARD T O MECCA

monastery wall. According to popular Buddhistic belief they are blown by spirits. Visitors, like

Mohammed Yusuf and myself, were, of course,

convinced that the " spirits " were either monks with

tremendous lung power, or manipulators of some

mechanical contrivance like a bellows. After the

trumpets had raised the noise to the highest pitch,

the chanting grew gradually lower until, in the end,

one heard only the humming voice of the old priest

who was bringing the service to an end.

I t was here, at Ludak, that my poor friend Yusuf

died after a very brief illness.

I t was here, too, that I heard of an alchemist

who lived somewhere in this range of mountains, and

was reputed to transmute baser metal into gold. My guide spoke of him with such extreme awe that

I gathered he must be a sage of very great sanctity;

indeed, a mahatma, as Theosophists would say. My curiosity was aroused, and I made further

inquiries. These were met by the local village head-

men with a show of polite nescience, and it was not until I informed one of them that I was anxious to

meet the Master because I was myself a devotee of the alchemical craft that I made any headway. Had I been a European I would, of course, have got no farther. But after a good deal of trouble, and a

I N THE HIMALAYAS

great deal of mystery, I was a t last informed that the Master would receive me. So, at the end of a

two days' tramp over the roughest country, I at last

found myself in the spacious cavern where he

pursued his researches.

The way to the alchemist's retreat was wild and

rugged. We climbed, my guides and I , from the

valley to a height almost inaccessible for our pack

animals, to find, to my surprise, a valley almost upon

a hilltop, above which the towering walls of the

Himalayas rose for many thousands of feet. No

one, unless he had known the way well, could ever

have stumbled upon the entrance to the sage's

cavern, hidden as it was not only by dark and giant

pine trees but by a jutting rock which rendered its

mouth practically invisible. An uncanny atmos-

phere hung about the place. T h e air, so high up,

was grey and raw, and the herbage sparse and dusty-

looking. But it was in these grim regions, not so far from the snow-line, that, as I was to learn, grew

the plant which was capable of transforming base

metal into gold.

Aruni-I suspect the name was an assumed one

because of its ancient and classical connec t ions1

found to be a pure Hindu of the Brahman caste, who

had betaken himself to this isolated spot for the sake

W E S T W A R D TO MECCA

of the utter quiet and freedom from interruption it

afforded. At first he received me with marked

suspicion and reserve. But my early training in alchemy had begun at ten years of age in Afghan-

istan, under the eye of a devoted student of the craft,

and my subsequent researches in the literature on

the subject stood me in good stead; for, after a

rigorous examination,, Aruni agreed to receive me as

a pupil for a period of three months. I am con-

vinced, however, that he would not have done so

had he not been rather curious concerning the novel knowledge of the craft which I displayed.

H e lived in the simplest manner possible, sleep-

ing in the rear of the cave on a bed of dried grass,

eating, at rare intervals, maize cakes baked over the

embers of his furnace, and drinking water only. He looked askance at the provisions I had brought with

me. But we were soon on excellent terms, and,

after I had dismissed my guides, I bent myself to acquire the secret of his craft.

I quickly found that the Master pursued the alchemical art from no desire of wealth or common

avarice. Rather he believed it, like the alchemists

of old, to be a spiritual process; a means by which the restoration of nature to her original, perfect scheme might be achieved. But I would say quite

IN THE HIMALAYAS

frankly that my own ideas on the subject did not

altogether square with those of my venerable teacher,

though I carefully avoided giving him any grounds for suspicion on this head. Would that, as it proved,

I had been able to conceal my material motives.

Let me briefly outline Aruni's alchemical hi lo- sophy. According to him the transmutation of

metals was accomplished by a powder ~ roduced from certain macerated herbs. T h e whole process, he

insisted, was divinely natural and simple, and he

brushed aside with contempt the more elaborate

theories I placed before him. Nature, he said, was

divided into male and female, and in its operations

like drew to like. The original matter of metals, he

assured me, was double in its essence, and consisted

of a dry heat combined with a warm moisture. But

he warned me against accepting these ideas in a

purely literal, and in other than a spiritual, sense.

" My son," he would say, " yoo must first purge the

mortal eye before you can behold the real truth of

these axioms, and that, I fear, with all your learning,

you have not as yet accomplished." His words, alas, were only too true. Although attracted to the

spiritual I must admit that the material has not been

without its allurements for me, and, as I listened to

Aruni's theory of how metals grew in the bowels of


the earth, I felt more and more that I was enter-

ing regions which, although ostensibly perspicuous

enough in their atmosphere, were yet veiled for me

in impenetrable clouds of allegorical obscurity.

The entire tendency of the natural kingdom, I was instructed by him, was towards the manufacture

of gold, the perfect substance. The production of the baser metals was only accidental, and as the

result of an unfavourable environment rendered

inauspicious by malign forces. Metals were engen-

dered by sulphur, which is male, and mercury, which

is female, and the elements of all metals are similar,

differing only in purity and proportion. The powder by which the baser metals might be metamorphosed

into gold was the combination of the male and female

seeds which beget the precious metal.

Aruni worked with copper, which he found most

suitable for his purpose. As regards the manu-

facture of his powder, made from roots and herbs; first he " purged " this by calcining it for " thirteen

moons," as he expressed it. During this phase he spoke of it as being in its " black state," in which it

must be dissociated from all impurities. Then he

allowed it to "putrefy," after which it became

"white." The next stage was "fermentation" or the

" red " stage. Before it was applied to the copper


the latter had also to be purified. But the ingredi-

ents of the mystic powder he would not confide to me, and indeed, at first, I did not ask him to

do so. On my arrival Aruni had been engaged in gather-

ing the samples from which his powder was manufactured, and I resolved, if possible, to secure specimens of them in the raw state. I knew that to

attempt to do so at first would be to court failure, so I watched my opportunity with extraordinary patience. By degrees the old man explained to me the several processes by which he purified the copper preparatory

to adding the powder. H e placed copper filings in a crucible over a charcoal fire, blown to a white heat

by goatskin bellows worked by the feet. When it had melted, he covered the crucible with clay, hardened it in the fire, and dipped the whole in salt

water, in which it hissed and bubbled. After that it was allowed to stand for a couple of days, and then it was opened, and the oxide removed.

Now was my opportunity to discover the kind of herbs with which he made the "powder of projection"

as alchemists call it. But Aruni invariably gathered these at dawn, an hour when I was sleeping peace- h l l ly , dreaming of gold untold, and what I should do with it when I returned to London.


Once I lay awake all night, and when the Master

arose, and went forth from the cave at sunrise, I followed him cautiously down the slope to the valley

beneath. Whatever description of plant it was he sought it took a great deal of finding, for only once

within the space of an hour and a half did I see him

pluck anything out of the ground. This he took

back to the cave, reduced it to pulp in a mortar,

mixed it with mercury, and then wrapped it up in a

strip of linen, coating the whole with clay. H e then

let it dry, dug a hole in the ground, filled it with

dried cow-dung gathered in the valley, and placed

the alchemical ball in the midst of this, setting fire to

the dry ordure with which it was surrounded, so that

it might " bake." But he would not permit me a

sight of the plant, either in its natural or macerated condition.

I felt by instinct, rather than knew, that the

Master suspected me of spying upon him, and little

by little our relations became somewhat strained. Then one night I woke to find him bending over me.

His face was within a foot of mine, and I could hear his breath coming and going in short, hissing gasps.

Alarmed, I cried out, and raised my arms as though to ward off an attack.

" You called," he said. "What did you want?"


" I did not call," I replied angrily. " I t is you

who come spying upon me in my sleep, because you

think I have penetrated your precious secrets." " My son," he replied sternly, " your mind is

vexing you. You are conscious that you have not

acted according to the dictates of the sages." Now to be informed at half-past three in the

morning that you have a bad conscience, and that you are not observing rules laid down by those long dead, is scarcely conducive to continued good-temper. And I am sorry to say I lost mine.

" Dog of a Hindu ! " I cried. " Who are you to teach morality to a son of Islam? You are nothing, after all, but a base empiric seeking to pose as a

person of great sanctity and learning, and you are probably trying to work up a reputation as a mystic, so that you may arrange a lucrative lecture tour through the priest-ridden areas of the East."

T o my amazement the old man grew suddenly dreadfully calm.

" I do not know what you mean," he replied with dignity, " and I certainly do not intend to quarrel with one from the outer world who has shown himself

so grossly material as you have. As regards my ability to perform that which I ' pretend to,' that is

my own affair. Enough for me to say that it was


against my better judgment that I accepted you as a

pupil, for, despite all your learning, it is clear to me that you have not yet shaken off the lures and

attractions of the physical world, and that you

do not understand the true spirit of the grand

quest."

" I crave your pardon, Master," I said formally,

" but you will admit that no one likes to be wakened

suddenly from sleep, and disturbed as you have disturbed me."

" I t is in sudden awakening that men reveal their true characters," Aruni replied sententiously.

This remark I am sorry to say made me laugh

long and loudly.

" You talk like a book, as they say," I cried,

shaking with merriment. " You are ridiculous." " I n books is wisdom," retorted Aruni. This

latter speech proved too much for me. I roared in ungovernable mirth. T h e old man drew himself up, and I could see his eyes glitter in the light of the dying furnace.

" I do not believe you to be a brother of the craft," c 1 he said gravely. None such would conduct himself

as you have done. You may have picked up its rudi- ments from some incautious alchemist, and you seem to have supplemented this knowledge by reading from

I N THE HIMALAYAS

those books which members of the Brotherhood have through the ages seen fit to give to the world. But

if you are so foolish as to believe that the grand

secret is to be penetrated by mere mechanical, or

bookish, knowledge alone, you err profoundly.

Alchemy is an art of the soul rather than of the mind ."

Now this speech nettled me, because I rather prided myself on my knowle-dge of the craft, although I must admit that I have never come within reason- able distance of its arcanurn. Besides a clever Afghan stratagem had entered my mind.

"You add vainglory to your other follies, Aruni," I said, haughtily. " D o you think that you alone are

in possession of the grand secret? And what proof

have I that you a re? I have never seen you project the great experiment. To-morrow let us compete according to our different methods in making the precious metal, when I will undertake to beat you on your own ground."

Of course all this was mere bluff, but to my amazement Aruni became transformed; for alchemists.

like actors, poets or musicians, are easily moved to

anger by any hint of superiority in method or attain- ment.

6 6 " What! " he almost shrieked, you, a neophyte,

40 ;WESTWARD TO MECCA

dare to pit your prowess against mine ! You are ten times more foolish than I believed. I know that you boast of what you cannot do, but I will show you,

aye, even now, how absurd are your allegations

regarding my powers or the lack of them. Rise, and come with me at once."

I bounded from my grass bed in a flutter of excite-

ment, and we made our way to where the crucible of

prepared copper stood beside the furnace. Aruni lit a resin torch, removed the clay lid, and thrust the

vessel beneath my nose.

" You see," he cried, shaking with anger, " it is

merely copper, is it not? " " True," I replied, " and copper it is likely to

remain."

H e made no reply, but went to that part of the

cave where I had suspected he kept his stock of

prepared powder of projection. H e returned to the

furnace and broke open the clay ball in which the powder was contained with a hammer. A fine, rust-

red, calcined powder lay within, for all the world like oxide of copper. Then, heaping the charcoal on

the furnace, he lifted the crucible of base metal and placed it on the fuel.

" Blow the bellows," he commanded curtly.

I did as he bid me, and soon a steady glow


resulted. H e brought another bellows and we both

trod steadily on the goatskin, working side by side in sullen silence. In about a quarter of an hour the

copper began to run, perhaps a couple of pounds of it, and then grew red and molten.

Aruni peered into the crucible, and ordered me

to keep on blowing. Then, taking a pinch of the red powder of projection, he cast it into the crucible, and

he continued to blow, too, into the molten metal

through a long nozzle, after the manner of the Indian gol'dsmiths. But gradually a subtle change stole over the surface of the metal. From a deep cherry red, it became first green, then blue, then violet, and I could see that some profound chemical change was taking place. At last the old man lifted the crucible from the furnace with a pair of tongs, laid two stones side by side and poured a spelter of the molten metal between them. As it cooled he removed it, and poured another and another until the crucible was empty.

" See ! " he cried, triumphantly. " Is that gold, or is it not, fool that you are? "

I lifted one of the spelters with the tongs. It was a rich straw-yellow, the colour of the finest gold.

'! It looks like gold," I admitted, my pulses


pounding with the age-long instinct of man for the

precious metal, " but how am I to test i t ? Have you any nitric acid by which I can try its virtue? "

" I know nothing of your barbarous methods of

trial," he replied, wrathfully. '' I tell you that what you look on is sovereign gold of the first standard.

Are you not content?"

By this time the metal had cooled sufficiently to

permit me to handle it. I t certainly looked like

gold, and as certainly it was not copper. I placed it

on one of the stones and pounded it with the hammer.

I t at once displayed the extraordinary malleability of

finest gold.

" I believe you, Master," I said, abashed.

" Forgive me, I spoke in haste. I a m sorry and ashamed?

'!And well you may be," replied the sage. " See

the sun is rising. I t is another day. Go now, and

return not to this place. You have been a fool, and

must suffer for your folly in a manner which you shall

regret all your days.'"

In vain I begged, entreated. to be allowed to

remain, even in the humble capacity of a servant, a mere assistant. Aruni was adamant. Nor would he

give me even the smallest particle of the gold, or the least pinch of the powder to carry away with me.

IN THE HIMALAYAS 43

Indeed, he scarcely addressed another word to me,

but turned his back upon me with every sign of

contempt. There was nothing for it but to go, and

a sense of having done an injury to one whom, at

heart, I really respected has restrained me from

returning at any time.

But that I saw gold made in that Himalayan

cavern I then profoundly believed. That I had

beheld the actual commission of the great act; the

unveiling of the grand secret, without comprehending

its process; and not once but a thousand times since

did I curse the folly and cupidity which ruined my

chance of ever acquiring a knowledge of the formula

of the arcanum. You of the West may smile at my

story and disbelieve it. All I have to say in reply

is that it contains nothing which is not the truth.

But there is a sequel.

As I thought then, it might be, as Aruni declared,

that alchemy is in reality a craft of the spirit. But what I witnessed appeared to me as a purely physical

experiment, and I could only conjecture that

alchemists throughout the ages have veiled what is

actually a purely chemical process by mystery and

allegory. At the same time, I wondered why Arwni and his like, i f they really manufactured gold in

sufficient quantities to bring them a fortune, did not


take idvantage of the material comforts which wealth

brings in its train. T o what purpose did Aruni

employ his wealth? Did he merely bury it in the earth in the assurance that he had assisted Nature in

returning to her pristine state of perfection?

During the twenty years and more in which I have

studied alchemical science, I have encountered so many divergent viewpoints that, frankly, I am

bewildered. Probably, as Aruni said, I am not

sufficiently far advanced on the spiritual road to comprehend these mysteries and collocate them into one perspicuous and homogeneous code of simple

truth, as he then seemed to have done.

But for the sequel. A full three months must have passed subsequent to this event, and my

experiences with the alchemist had been crowded out

by much tramping, for I was then working my way down to the borderland of India. At any rate on a

particularly hot evening, I sat with the English

Superintendent of Police when his men reported the

arrival of a gang of coin counterfeiters with the Hindu Pilgrims from the Himalayan uplands. The

police officers sought the permission of their high

official before arresting the offenders, especially because the head of the gang was reputed to be a

" holy man," who could transmute baser metal into


gold, in addition to being able to sit for hours on a

bed of spikes. Believing this to be one of those matters which

sorely try an English official every day of his service

in India I gave no further thought to the affair,

although my curiosity was certainly excited. But

when, some weeks later I was again dining with the

same official, I asked him about the case of the " holy man."^

c c " Oh," he said, it was a unique case. T h e

man posed as a fakir of great sanctity, tracing his

ancestry from the Clan of the Moon itself. H e used

to melt the copper, and when that metal was a mass of molten red, he asked his disciples to blow the goatskin bellows hard, whilst he himself, pretending to increase the flame by puffing through a long nozzle,

passed small balls of pure gold, concealed in his mouth, through that nozzle into the copper, and when sufficient gold had been added to the metal in the crucible he used to proclaim that elixir had been added, and that transmutation had occurred. T h e gaping crowds thereupon used to place their offerings before the alchemist. Later he counterfeited coins also.".

This brought very vividly to my mind the art which I had sought in the Himalayas, and I felt

46 W E S T W A R D TO M E C C A

intensely interested to see the alchemist. My

astonishment can therefore be better imagined than

described when I saw the self-same alchemist, Aruni,

of my experiences on the Roof of the World, behind

the bars of the prison cell. And I felt that it must

have been the same manipulation which that master

of alchemy must have resorted to before my eyes,

then blinded by superstition. Recognizing me, he

hung his head in shame, and began to twist his rosary

beads in his fingers.

So I left him and tramped my way down to

the Frontier Province which divides India from Afghanistan.

C H A P T E R I1

THE DANGER TRAIL OF THE FRONTIER

ON entering the wild glens of the borderland a feeling of contrast came upon me. A contrast of

ages it was, for I thought that the ultra busy West, chasing the phantom of material happiness, does not tarry to think that she is the innocent cause of an awakening in modern Asia. Nor ponders over this curiosity of human evolution; that this bestirred East is no other than that which she looked upon as a

region of inactive and immovable peoples. The Oriental world of our generation is as

different from the ancient East as the poles apart. The new one with an eye on the main chance, the other hungrier for knowledge than for gold. T h e result of this Western impact h,u been that the Eastern does not now feel at all contented " t o let the legions thunder past and plunge in thought again. , )

And although the signs of revival are unmistakable, and progress in this direction assured, the whole matter has given rise to grave concern in the minds

of many Eastern thinkers. They 'do not like it. 47

W E S T W A R D T O MECCA

I have met not an inconsiderable number of

sages, grey-beards, in almost all the remote parts of

Asia, who shake their heads over the rapidity with

which this Westernization of the East is " tarnishing

the ancient glory of Asia, scraping off the real Oriental

colour, putting on the gloss foreign in nature and

superficial in character," as they put it. Maybe that they are too old, some may even think that they lag

behind the times, but if their observation is incorrect,

then it will be the one solitary instance when they

have misread the situation, and the progress of history

can only prove the wisdom or the falsity of such a pronouncement.

In the meantime, however, one notices this Europeanization as near as Angora, and as distant

as Kabul and Peking. In its progress it has to fight its way against age-long traditions and ideas. Often

it is delayed when it comes u p against fanatical

prejudices, but it continues to fight its victorious battle. It has already fully conquered both Egypt and Turkey. I t is sweeping over Asia; flowing east-

ward unhampered ; carrying even the conservative Afghans before it, till it comes up against the

mountain-locked region of the North-Western

Frontier. A strip of country barely more than

twenty-five miles broad, and extending in length

THE F R O N T I E R 49

from the Pamirs in the north to Baluchistan in the

south, a distance of little less than eight hundred

miles, which separates India from Afghanistan. At

the gates of this borderland country Western

influence is called upon to halt, and it is perhaps one

of the few regions in Old Asia where the real East

still lives.

T o most people the Frontier Province is spelt in

terms of rapacious brigandage, clan wars, murders,

and all phases of unspeakable crimes known to history.

T o a few it is familiar through punitive expeditions

which the Indian Government sent to reprimand

clansmen ; and further knowledge scarcely reaches

the light of day about people which, as I have said,

are more truly the representatives of Old Asia than

even the Chinese poet watching the flight of the geese

on an autumn evening, and writing poetry about

them.

In the first place, let us not forget that this

borderland holds in its lap the famous Khyber Pass

-the most strongly fortified, natural highway in the

world-through which practically all the important

invasions of India have passed. The ancient reeks wrote ballards in honour of Scylax who, by way of

the Khyber, reached India two thousand five hundred

years ago. The last of the invaders, Baber, in the D


early sixteenth century, crossed 'the pass to found the

great Moghul Dynasty which ruled India till the advent of the British.

I t was only during Lord Curzon's Viceroyalty in

India that the North-West Frontier Province was

formed, with Peshawar as its headquarters. Its

political history is nothing but a tragic story of

clansmen's attacks and British punitive expeditions.

All efforts to " civilize " have failed, and on the day

the frontiersman changes his speech and dress must be

reckoned the end of a virile, valiant and warlike race

of Asia. T h e constant friction which, happily not so

acute now, exists between the sons of the Khyber

and the British is sometimes due to the fact that the

borderman cannot change his mode of life. TO

appreciate this point some details about the country

and its people will not be without interest.

A number of clans inhabit this far and wild

frontier from the north to the south. There are,

for instance, Afridis, Yusufzai, Shinwaris, Zaka

Khail, Osman Khail, Masuds and many others.

Each clan lives within a certain area, inhabiting a

region amongst the hills or glens specified by its

ancestors. T h e number of its members may be large

or small, yet in its political entity no clan can tolerate the ceding of any ascendancy to its neighbour. That

THE FRONTIER

is a distinctive feature of the individual also, for each

member of a clan, however humble his means, ranks

equal to another, barring, of course, the " elder" of

the clan, who is a grey-beard, and claims government

over his tribe, as often as not, by virtue of heritage.

The country is, however, divided by somewhat

indefinite limits into " independent " and " settled

or administered areas." People living under the

independent system inhabit the interior of the hills,

and prefer aloofness. In many cases, indeed, they

enjoy a truer form of "independence " than even

certain European states, for they owe allegiance to

no one, and will not barter their abject poverty, or

strenuous toil, for another system of government,

however benign.

Perhaps it is the geographical conditions of their

country which have invested them with such (6 peculiar " traits of character. They are unlike both

the Indians aild the Afghans, because the frontier

is so different topographically from India and

Afghanistan. The hills in which their lurking-places

are situated are bare and almost devoid of animal or

vegetable life. Here and there tufts of dry grass

cluster on the parched brown soil, and now and again

a partridge may start up at the feet of the traveller

with a shrill cry and a whirring of wings. But on


the whole a more desolate wilderness-treeless,

shrubless, lifeless-can scarcely be imagined. The earth refuses him a living, unless, by dint of great

hardship, he cultivates a patch on the banks of a

mountain torrent, or herds a few half-starved sheep

or goats from water-course to water-course. The

independence it grants he values more than life itself,

and he will fight for his half-cultivated patch of soil

as fiercely as if it were the richest of possessions.

Outside the walled and towered villages in that

country I have seen men ploughing behind their oxen

with rifles slung over their shoulders, and with

every sense on the alert for the sudden onslaught of a possible enemy. Their well-filled cartridge-belts were strapped round their waists, a straight long

knife stuck in the kamarbund, ever ready for work. Seeing them live this life generation after generation,

with the fear always of an unknown enemy, under

such inhospitable conditions, there can be but few just men who cannot admire this race in the heart of Asia.

Then there are the so-called "administered

areas," inhabited by the same stock of people, speaking the same language, Pashtu, and belonging to the same religion, Islam; but with this difference,

that they are under British rule. The regions of

THE F R O N T I E R

Peshawar, Kohat and others, are of this class, where

British law, tempered by local usage and conditions, is administered. There is no doubt, however, that

the efforts of the Government of India to bring an

appreciable amount of peace and comfort amongst

the warlike tribes under their rule have not always

been in vain. A great deal has been done, for

instance, towards improving agriculture, and I have

witnessed green tracts of country around the town

of Shubqadar where both the canal and the hill

streams have materially benefited the warrior-farmers

of the mountains.

Policing the country against both foreign

aggression and tribal raids has not always provided

the British authorities there with restful sleep at

nights. But it is a wise course that this work of watch

and ward is entrusted chiefly to the local people them-

selves, and their services are generally well paid.

The work of holding the Khyber Pass can at best be

but a thankless task, for, although police and militia

outposts crown almost all the hilltops in both the

Mhyber and the Bolan Pass regions, yet events as

recent as 1919 go to show that these passes cannot be

held by mere force of arms. Local influence and the goodwill of the people of the frontier is a better

guarantee than a hundred battalions. How far those

WESTWARD TO MECCA

local sympathies can be retained and by what means, is outside the province of this narrative.

But I cannot leave the subject without remarking

that a railway line which was opened in the Khyber

at the end of 1925, and regarding which so much secrecy was maintained, is unworthy of the importance

with which some strategists invest it. In plain words it is an extension of a military railway-system beyond

Jumrood to Dekka on the Afghan border line. This

line is a commendable piece of engineering, though

not so wonderful as some mountain railways in

Europe, in Italy for example. T o the uninitiated it was said that the railway was being built for

commercial purposes. But even the untutored

merchant of the wilds did not credit that explanation,

for when he had loaded his camels at Kabul, bound for Peshawar-a distance of about two huidred

miles-he did not think it worth while to unload his camels at Dekka and use twenty-seven miles of Khyber railway to transport his merchandise.

As a means of rapid transport of war material or

troops it is equally a useless effort, for when it is realized that a single boulder, hurled down by a

single man from the top of n hill, can block any

tunnel of the railway, and that the sentry of the tunnel forms a good target for a sniper, the extent of possible

l# THE KWY'IIER PASS. CARAVAN OM 173 WAY Ttl KAWL

THE FRONTIER. 55

damage can be imagined. Furthermore, the removal

of the railway lines is the easiest thing on earth for

the tribesmen. I t would, indeed, be nothing more

than sport to the boys of the village to indulge in this,

if their elders dropped a mere hint.

The nature and the extent of the misgivings which

the construction of this useless railway has given rise

to in Afghan minds can be left to the nationals of the

King Amanullah's country to determine themselves.

How far the people of Kabul consider it as a threat

to their independence I need not attempt to answer.

Suffice it here to add that the Afghans, perhaps being

alive to the impotency of the Khyber railway, did not

protest against its construction, as they did when

Russia extended a railway from Merv to its northern

border at Kushk post many years ago.

The progress of Western influence has not failed

to effect the " administered areas " in the Frontier

Province of India, specially Peshawar and the

regions that encompass it : for the city folk, certainly

due to an ever increasing contact with Europeans,

are aspiring to vie with other ~rovinces of India and

seek those benefits with which the neighborlring

provinces in British India are blessed by the Reforms Acts.

In a word they now demand a provincial Govern-

56 WESTWARD ,TO MECCA

ment, a representative Assembly, Ministers and the

attendant paraphernalia. So far, on account of

political and strategical reasons, or so it was alleged,

the Montague-Chelmsford reforms were not extended

to the North-West Frontier Province of India. But only during the last session of the Legislative

Assembly, despite vigorous Hindu antagonism, it

agreed to extend it. As to when it will be extended was not, however, specified, and it undoubtedly

leaves many a political thinker to draw his own conclusions about it.

But much as one might deplore a complete

Westernization of that stronghold of what is best in

the East, there remains no doubt in my mind that certain impulses of modern science and education

have immensely benefited these ~ e o p l e of the

frontier. They are a naturally gifted and adapt-

able race of men, born fighters and tacticians, and wherever in their composition the proper

Western element has entered they have not revolted.

Nawab Sir Abdul Qayum Khan of Peshawar, a true

representative of his race and traditions, is a living refutation of Kipling's lines, " East is East and West

is West, and never the twain shall meet." For,

indeed, are East and West really so far apart as

THE FRONTIER

some would have us believe? Do the ~ e o p l e of

Asia look on the world so differently from the

Europeans that it is not possible to find a common meeting ground? T h e average Easterner is not a

symbol of the East , nor is the average Westerner

necessarily typical of the West. Average men

represent commonplace conditions of life and

thought; they are puppets of environment. You

cannot judge the whole race of frontiersmen by the

marauding adventures of some outlaw any more than

you can judge the entire English race by a prisoner

at Old Bailey. Not average men but men endowed

with capacity and intellectual development are really

capable of representing their race, and of interpret-

ing the inner life-" the life of life " as Shelley puts

it-of which average men in all lands are but pale

and sometimes distorted reflections.

In their domestic affairs they practise the highest

form of chivalry and magnanimity. There are two

words which are ever on the clansmen's tongue,

Izzat and Sharam. Both mean " honour "; that

which must be guarded from shame at all cost; and

if a slight is placed upon his honour the possessor

deems it can only be wiped out in blood.

The importance that is attached to Izzat and

Sharam is perhaps the greatest feature in the life of

5s W E S T W A R D T O MECCA

a tribesman, as my travels through that region con-

vinced me rather dramatically. I was visiting a

border chief, and being proud of his new motor-car

he wished me to travel by it to another of his villages.

Our motor sped on its way down the zigzag hill road

to the distant borderland village. Gradually clumps of mulberry trees and stacks of chopped hay,

indicated our destination. A few minutes more and

we reached the cross-roads. Lumbering camels led by swarthy, warlike Pathans, armed to the teeth;

rustic bullock carts, pulled by dreamy-eyed oxen,

herds of sheep and goat enveloped in the dust of

their own making, and in the midst of all these our

car formed a queer procession linking Adam's time to our own.

On the rocky hilltops, far away, wild figures of frontiersmen walked mysteriously, as if endeav-

ouring to put out the tremendous conflagration of the

setting sun, and the dying rays struck red on their rifles.

On entering the turret-crowned gate of the village the Call from the minaret of the mosque, " God is Great, God is Great," was bestirring the ~ e o p l e to prayer, and we too hurried our steps to swell the ranks of the faithful.

After the evening prayer a right royal feast was

THE FRONTIER 59

given in honour of the visiting mullah, and the

visit was taken advantage of to settle a village

feud.

Young and old gathered in the public square

after the feast, the Elders seating themselves round

the mullah in the centre. T h e question was, how

far a poor sword-maker, Akram Khan, was justified

in stabbing the trusted servant of Sunjar, a rich, gay

Lothario of the village, and, being unable to pay

blood-money, what recompense was he to make.

" Let the murderer speak, let his blood flow,"

they shouted, but a hush fell upon the gathering as

the sword-maker's gaunt figure stretched itself to its

full height.

" I, Akram Khan," he said, with defiance, " have

killed the hired poltroon. I have slain him at my

own door-step with this." An Afghan blade shone

in his hand. " A long line of warriors have I , and

in their name I will not barter the esteem of my clan

for a hundred Sunjars."

On this the village youths lost control, snatched

burning faggots from the bonfires, or felt for their

large knives or guns. This son of a sword-maker

thus challenged them, and, even there, they would cut him up, or burn him limb by limb. In this

tumultuous scene, however, Akram Khan was under-


stood to say that the murdered man sought to

disgrace his house, which he would defend alone, if

needs be, against the whole village.

" Speak the truth, speak the truth, thou, 0 villain," shrieked an old man. " Thou hast killkd my only son. 0 my son, 0 my son." Large drops from his eyes trickling down his venerable beard

as he spoke chokingly. T h e mullah with great difficulty pacified the excited crowd to further listen

to the defence of Akram. " T h e blood of the

man is not on my head," he protested before the 6 < infuriated people, it is on Sunjsr, who employed

the man."

"0, but, how strange. What evil dost thou speak? " shouted the rich man. T h e father of the victim, no longer upright, struggled to stand up, but fell 'down on the ground. " Thou shalt be slain,"

he cried, trembling under the calamity that had fallen upon him in his old age. " Say what thou mayst, thou wilt be killed. Thou shalt be stabbed

as my son was stabbed. The blood of my son lies at your door."

T h e mullah once again restored order, when Akram began again by asking, " Know you this Sunjar, this rich man? " None replied to an obviously absurd question. " Well," he said, " you

THE FRONTIER 61

think you do, but you do not. I alone of the village

know him, for I took pains to find out as to who he

was before he came here. H e is of low birth, and

although he crossed the Khyber thrice to sell his

Kabul ponies in India, and returned with more than

six belts full of gold coins of the Ferunghis, and

bought lands and orchards, he could not buy

ancestry. His blood remained low."

All this explanation, however, did not appear in

the eyes of the judges of the villages, and specially

in those of the mullah, as a sufficient reason for

killing a man. Even the looks of the Akhunzada

were darkening as he told his beads more rapidly. L L But, tarry, men of the village, more will I speak,"

said Akram. " Being low born with no ancestry he

sent his servant with presents to me, seeking the

hand of my daughter. A low-born seeking the hand

of the daughter of a warrior, it meant, and that could

only be wiped out in blood; that insult to the name

of my house."

The Akhunzada stopped twisting the beads of his

rosary upon this. Grey-beards eyed each other in

astonishment. Red began to mount in the faces of

the young; the youths hung their heads as in shame. Such a thing was never heard of on the

borderland.


" And when I knew," explained the sword-maker

in an assured tone, as if throwing in his last card, 66 that a man not only of low parentage, but also

bearing a wound in his back indicating cowardice in

battle, was seeking the hand of a warrior's daughter,

I stabbed the bearer of the proposal as my answer to

his master."

T h e mullah nodded approvingly, and lifted his

hands in prayer, said, " So had Allah written," and

Akram's actions were thus completely vindicated;

for so also had the mullah decreed.

After this trial, the preliminaries of welcome to

me in that frontier village, and an enormous feast,

the celebrations were ended. I was now to accorn-

pany my host on his night patrol amongst the hills

of the Khyber Pass.

But although it was his wont, as a chief, to

examine personally, every night, all outposts of his

village against hostile attacks of rival clansmen, and

to travel at dusk in disguise, yet, that night, he told

me that he was taking me somewhere the locality of

which I must not ask any questions till we actually got there.

His baggy trousers were tucked well above his ankles; he wore his turban low, with the end across

his month, not only according to the frontier travel

THE FRONTIER 63

custom-so that no dust might enter the mouth-but that his face might be only half visible. Both an

Afghan knife and a revolver were tucked in his

girdle. In this fashion I too was dressed, and we

climbed the rugged pathway up the Khyber defiles,

in and out of the narrow and tortuous alleys; now

ascending by pulling ourselves up by the roots of

some half parched bush, now sending the pebbles in

descent rattling down the hillside, which seemed like

thunder in that dark silence; stopping here and there

to make certain that no one had heard us; for men

of a hostile clan have ears sharper than those of

wolves, and would send a shower of bullets at us

instead of a challenge.

Following no path, winding between boulders and

slippery pebbles, I toiled on behind my companion.

A cloud covered the half moon and stars and plunged

the scene into utter darkness. At least thrice I lost

my foothold. I could feel the sharp edges of the stones through the soles of my boots, but I dared not

lag behind.

At one point, stretching my hand out in the

darkness to something that appeared like a tuft of

grass, I was startled at the touch of a slithery, soft

rock lizard, and, losing my balance, made a false

step, sending a fairly large stone clattering down the

WESTWARD TO MECCA

hill. As it hit the edge of the precipice with a crash, my heart very nearly stopped beating. The noise did its mischief, for, at once, a shrill challenge from

the gloom above bid us tarry, and inquired as to whom

we were. I owe my life to the presence of mind of my companion, who, whilst cursing me for having

so degenerated by walking in the well ordered and

level roads of Europe, pulled me behind a boulder.

Hardly had we sunk close to it when footsteps

approached to where I had slipped, and after a futile search melted away in the distance.

I was more dead than alive, as we proceeded on our journey to a destination totally unknown to me.

The valley broadened into the basin of the Kabul

River, and soon the distant thudding of drums intermingled with the barking of village dogs somewhat steadied me. Soon was I seated in a

sumptuously furnished apartment of Sultan Khan,

quaffing cup after cup of green tea, and giving no more thought to the adventurous journey.

A late supper and innumerable cups of tea having

warmed us up a bit I asked my host how it was that a strip of the country was so enemically disposed towards him when large tracts of land belonging to him lay on either side of it.

" It is due to a woman," he said, fixing his gaze


on me, and uncovering his head he ran his fingers through his long hair in suppressed agitation. " Yes,

I say, women have been no good to me, and thuswise it happened.

' 5 Before that grey-bearded father of mine died,

and I became the Chief, he spoke once, twice and a thousand times to me to wed, but wedding I did not

wish. The old Chieftain thought of the title of the

house and its retention in our family through my

children, for he saw in me too wild a spirit even for a Khyber man. For I love to send bullets through

my opponents' heads and invite theirs, whilst showing them how well I can avoid their mark. And thuswise

I wished always to dwell. Besides, never could 1 think of being able to spare time from my warring to stroke a wife, and hear her gentle purr. A man of tulwar and a woman live apart.

"When I saw that my father had made u p his mind that I must have a wife right or wrong, I had

likewise made up my mind not to have one. I set forth thinking to go to Afghanistan, but little chance of raiding will there be there I thought, as they have framed laws, and laws are no good to anybody. I will hie myself to the south, slay a Khan and seize his lands; people would then hear my name as a

great warrior and flock to me. I might even be a E


King of Delhi, who knows? Many things were in my mind.

" I journeyed far and wide as a holy man and as

a Hakeem turn-about. Green valleys and parched hills did I transverse, till I saw the fire-carriage of the Jerangi; the fire-carriages, which were swiftly

moving, packed with white soldiers, to the Quetta hills. Of a truth the might of the fire-carriage

overawed even me, and my heart wished to conquer its force. Long I sat devising means to that end, hidden behind a pipal tree, then, nothing occurring to me, I resolved to at least get inside one of its

wooden rooms. Full two nights did I hide seeking

an opportunity from the mulberry grove behind which the empty wooden rooms of the fire-carriage stood.

I t was just after the rich gloaming of the hills was fading that I stole into one of its rooms. When

it started, praise be to Allah, it ran faster by far than

any hill pony. I said so to the Ferunghi sitting opposite me in the compartment. H e was startled

by my voice, for he read a paper considering himself alone. But he had not perhaps been long in the frontier, otherwise he would have known that the wild men of the Khyber need not get in the carriage

by the proper door, nor necessarily when the carriage is at a stand still.

THE FRON'TIER 67

"His young face showed little concern beyond

a surprise, and, although there was the chance to slay

him, I somehow felt sorry for him when he told me

that it was his mother's letter that he read. A widowed old mother was his, who lived in a land

beyond seven seas, and he had left her to serve his country. I thought him brave like myself, for had

not I left my valleys to brighten my clan's name, and I thought brave men should better live.

Especially did I not kill him because his revolver case hung carelessly on a peg from which he did not notice

my extraction of his weapon. The possession of his

fire-arm I considered sufficient when I leaped into the gloom of a way-side station whilst the fire-carriage was still moving slowly.

" I slept in a wheat field at night. It was a larger village than I had seen on the frontier where, in the morning, I strolled, and found myself looking hungrily at the heap of long, red fruit which a Hindu

sold by weight. A whole rupee's worth would I have

of this new fruit of Hindustan. The Hindu desisted somewhat in weighing, and asked me whether I was

sure that I wanted as much as a rupee's worth. I can't bandy words when hungry, so in reply I only

half showed my Afghan blade. T o my delight he gave me a load of i t .

WESTWARD TO MECCA

" Hardly had I eaten two fruits, red, thin like

fingers they were, when I discovered that I did not

relish the taste. They made my tongue smart, my mouth aglow, tears began to appear from my eyes,

my nose began to run. I felt ill, and my blood was

up. ' What,' I said, ' a warrior like me to feel thus by eating Hindustan fruit! ' I ate more, a handful to see whether the first feeling could be killed by

additional eating, but it made matters worse. My forehead began to throb, I began to perspire, my

mouth was in flames. I could hardly see my way by my tear-dimmed eyes. But when the Hindu boys ran after me clapping their hands, as if following one demented, and shouting ' look at the man of the hills

eating the hot chillies by the handful,' I felt that the limit of human endurance had been reached. AS

my agony increased I swore that not only would I have the blood of the man who sold the fruit to me, but also that of everyone in the village.

"At least thrice did I draw my knife and eat of the fruit refusing to be beaten. My eyes began to

swim in my head as I threw myself on the reed stool beside a booth in the village fair. And whose shop dost thou think it was? The same wretched chilli

sellers. There did I lose my senses. I jumped at

the person weighing the satanic fruit, and fastened

THE FRONTIER 69

my teeth in my victim's neck. After a scramble

I escaped, and was glad to find myself once

again under the shadows of my native Khyber

Pass. "As I reached the village which is now hostile,

an'd through which you and I passed to-night, I saw

a woman at the sight of whom such sensations arose in my mind as I had not known in battle. I then

thought that that feeling must be love, and resolved

forthwith to wed the daughter of the priest, as she

was, even if I had to slay the father should he refuse his daughter's hand to me.

" M y clansmen, hearing of my return, took me to my village, and made me the chief, because my father had died in the meantime; but the mullah's daughter they would not have as my wife, and that explains her living in this village as my wedded partner in

life. The neighbouring chief's daughter I would not

wed, so he waged war upon me. But battle I do not mind; what puzzled me most was how to adequately

celebrate the wedding, as I had no money. A Hindu money-lender in Peshawar volunteered to assist, and how the cash was got and the claim met is a story that is better told by the Chief Scout himself I "

At this command a gaunt son of the wild Khyber, who sat at the edge of the carpet, and whose presence

70 WESTWARD 'TO MECCA

I had not noticed before, came forward, and having been introduced to me as the Chief Scout, Prime

Minister and general factotum all combined, began :

" T h e story of the money-lenkler," he said, and a

mischievous light played in his eyes, " is soon told.

All that we wanted was a thousand rupees for the

wedding, and, after the sum was got and spent, thrice did I take eleven hundred rupees to the Hindu

money-lender in Peshawar to pay off the debt, and

thrice did he return the money, saying that he was

in no hurry for the repayment. But after the third

year he put in an application in the Ferunghi (British)

court of India demanding ten thousand rupees as

principle and interest. T h e glib tongued Babu

talked for hours in the court, pressing the claims of

the money-lender, and the white Judge, looking through many books of law said that my master must

pay. But my master did not see eye to eye with that

judgment. Thereupon I went to the Hindu with

three thousand rupees, which he accepted as part payment, and had me flung in a gaol as a gllarantee for the payment of the balance.

" But gaol cannot keep a son of the Khyber for long, and within two days I had escaped and had got back to my village. My master now resolved to

THE FRONI'IER 71

take the law in his own hands. H e sent the balance

to the money-lender and apologized for having

inconvenienced him. H e also offered to send

presents to him when his clansmen came to Peshawar

for their monthly shopping. This was necessary

otherwise the money-lender would have had the

English court keep a ban on the entry of our men into

the British territory.

" One day a bridal procession, trekking down

from the Khyber Pass, approached the gates of

Peshawar. The bridal litter was followed by other

covered litters bearing the dowry articles, and there

were quite two hundred others. Music from the

small drums added to the charm of the occasion,

whilst all the best swordsmen of our village gaily

danced, whirling themselves about, slashing the air

with their Afghan blades, all' the way as we passed

through the streets of the town. From the story- tellers' bazaar through the food market, then by way

of the cloth mart to the goldsmiths' lane, the procession moved, and when I, being in the rear, saw the procession well inside the narrow street of the bankers' and the litters arrived close to the money-

lender's house, I gave the signal. The curtains of

the litters were thrown open, every man took his rifle

from the heavy load in the litters, and a shouting,

72 WESTWARD TO M E C C A

yelling pack of the wild Khyber men swept upon the

money-lender's house.

" Pickets held both ends of the street whilst not a

sou did we spare for the Hindu. Papers, gold,

silver, notes, everything we bundled up. Locking his womenfolk in a cell, a dozen of the stoutest of us

bore the fainting, begging money-lender with the

booty across the Mulberry avenue surrounding the

city, and I saw our pickets exchange shots to cover us from the frontier armed police as we climbed up

and on into the vastness of the Khyber.

"Wha t a welcome did we get at the village!

Pounds of gold ornaments, silver and coin in heaps, were distributed amongst the gallant members of the

band. I t was five times more than we ever paid to the money-lender for his debt. As to the notes we

were not sure. Papers we burnt, and my master saw the yellow page of the English court, bearing his thumb impression for the debt of a thousand rupees, in the flames. W e held the fat Hindu at ransom for

ten thousand rupees, or twenty rifles, and when I pushed him across the border line, after the receipt of ransom, I for one was glad not to have had him as

my share of booty, as he was so articular about his food. Besides he had many other ways of a

heathen I "


My host did not exactly run a story-teller's club,

but when the night is dark, men have feasted them-

selves and the watch on the village tower is ~ l a c e d ,

every lad of the village delights to recount his

exploits. And so it was when another began his

experiences.

" Knowst thou the mullah who came from the

north and cured the dying child of my brother by

the recitation of the holy formula, and healed my uncle's elbow-wound by touching it with a green

stone? Remember thou the day of the Ferunghi's

afrit, with wondrous wings, droning above the valley

and crashing against the Khyber rocks that stab the

sky at the mullah's behest. That day I pinned my faith in the mullah's saying, ' that all who wage a

holy war will go straight to Paradise.' Even all the

men of Jawakai kissed his hands, and he spoke of

heaven and hell; of the faithful and the unbelievers;

of the pleasures of life eternal in Allah's garden for

the Ghazis who dispatches a Kafir. That sermon of the mullall made my blood run quicker, for was not

the coolness of Allah's bowers better than existing

amongst parched hills in the belly of broiling heat?

And forthwith I resolved to slay a Kafir, a Hindu,

or a Ferunghi, but better a Ferunghi, for the

Ferunghi's rifle is worth possessing.


" So, tying the mullah's charm on my right arm, and securing an additional knot in the red rag in the thorny bush at the door of the old Priest as a token

of good luck, I sallied forth, even against my father's

bidding, and the darkness of the valley swallowed

me as I picked my way to the robbers' lair. Brigand I did not want to become, but in the robbers'

company alone could I get near enough to the object

so dear to me, and win martyrdom. Many a

caravan we pounced upon, and I did not lag behind,

but near enough to a Ferunghi I could not get. My spirit often revolted at this loot, for I wanted no

wealth. I love fighting and the men for the Caravan, it appeared, learnt no fighting in their trade. They

either fled leaving their all to our band, or hid behind unconcealing boulders, while bullets from

their shaking hands flew wide. Nor were they

skilled in wielding their Afghan knife, above all no Ferunghis travelled with them, and I began to tire of that business. As a warrior it had no glory, nor as a Ghazi was I nearing my goal. And that wise I proposed not to dwell.

"And then came the chance of my life when I first met the Ghazi, and his associates who would have blood of the Kafirs; martyrs all. Whatever

might have been the motive of others my blood was


hot against the Kafirs, and often did I think of what the mullah had said of the reward of martyrdom.

So it was that the raid was arranged. Our scouts had manceuvred the ground for days, and upon Ferunghis' bungalows we had decided to sweep

down. They selected me to cover the retreat, but that did not suit me at all, for as not only my fame was in all men's mouths but also eager as I was to slay a Kafir, I would also be in a t the kill. I proposed instead to proceed first and give the signal for the attack.

" A moonless night it was, too, and warily we went, uphill and downhill, climbing or descending the sheer smooth faces of the bare rocks yet warm with the day's sun; slipping and sliding and saving a headlong plunge into the yawning chasm by grasping like grim death at some stunted, hard shrub; crawling and crouching we went on up and down, till well past the last range of hills. Away in the darkness stood the greater darkness of the British town, and tiny lights indicated the Ferunghis' houses. - My heart leaped with joy at the sight of it. What followed is known. T h e Ferunghi could not be found. I searched high and low for him whilst others looted and the white Memsahibs raised the alarm. Some coward amongst us delivered the

76 WESTWARD 'r0 MECCA

blow. That dog I would like to slay myself even now, for we wage no war on women and children.

But who it was none yet knows. Nor will it ever be known.

" No, the blood of women does not lie at my door," he continued chokingly, " mine is a delight of possessing an English rifle, and by such craft did

I do it three years ago that praises were sang for me

throughout the borderland and fame was brought to

my home. Knowst thou the story of my further doings at Peshawar? Then, thou shalt listen.

" In Peshawar where I then stood many white soldiers dwelt, and from that treasure house of fire-

arms I would have weapons. Cunningly did I watch the sentry do duty, from far-off fields, and there it was, too, that I noticed a party of them, a little after the noonday prayer, marched clad in white half trousers, to a field close by and chased a ball about. Some kicked it, others handled it, they ran after it

like madmen, now huddled together, now tumbling, yelling, shouting and then stopping at the sound of a whistle, to give a rest to the ball as it seemed to me. I saw the sentry take much interest in that game and there lay my chance. Behind the trees I hid till dusk, and then crept towards the sentry till I reached a large empty cask. Accommodating myself in that

THE FRONTIER 77

I rolled it along towards the magazine, thus gaining

two or three feet when the sentry's back was turned.

In the darkness of the night the rolling mass did not

attract the man's attention, and rising wind drowned

the noise of the cask's movement, till, thus concealed,

I was within eight yards of him. A number of other

empty casks near the sentry there were in which it

took me at least two hours to range myself. T h e click of his boots, and the smart slap over the butt of

his rifle at each turn of his round, was adding to my

excitement. Crouching like a leopard, and with his

agility, I was behind the other cask used to hold

water from the roof of the magazine, and just a yard

from which the sentry always took his stand on his

way back from the other end of his path. Gluing

myself to the side of the cask, I caught my breath as

I heard him approach, traack, traack, traack. H e

came nearer and nearer, and within an arm's length

he stood motionless.

" Blessing the souls of all the hero-spirits of the

Khyber, I leaped at him like a flash. H e had no

chance; both my hands twisted his neck; he fell

unconscious, and taking not only his rifle and

cartridges but another two from the rack, I was

beyond the furthermost English block house within

half an hour.


" ' Who goes there? ' they challenged, and fire

leaped out of a loophole from the top of the Khyber

outpost : but it was too wide. And then to speak of rejoicing. Never was there a greater welcome than

that for Gul Akbar with three rifles. I felt like the King of Delhi himself ."

This story-telling would have gone on for days

together, but the last watch from the village-turret

was being lifted, and the mullah's voice rose from

the mosque in the long sonorous call, " Allaho Akbar,

Allaho Akbar ! " he was summoning the faithful to the morning prayer. After this was over I was

escorted to Malakand, and from thence took train to Peshawar.

CHAPTER I11

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF AFGHANISTAN

THE sound of quick firing greeted me as I stepped

out of the compartment at Peshawar railway station.

The restaurant car had been detached from the train

some hours before so that I was looking forward to

a good feast at my destination; but excitement dis-

pelled my hunger, for a mere handful of tribesmen

were raiding the neighbourhood, and as rifle

pleasantries were being exchanged between the wild

men of the Khyber Pass and the Guards I had to wait

at the station till all was quiet.

There is something in the air of the Frontier

Province that makes its sons yearn for the right end

of a rifle, and, to tell the truth, as I sat in that corner

of the railway waiting-room from where I could see

in the distant gloom spurts of fire leap out in quick

succession, I felt the hillman's instinct grip me, and

before long would have found myself asking someone whether it was a private fight or whether I might

join in. But instead I thought of Afghanistan, that 79


birthplace of warriors and statesmen, where an effort

is being made to subordinate the physical by the

philosophical, as behoves a country of great heritage

and of greater future destiny. I thought also that the country of grandsires might frown down on me if I fought other peoples' battles.

Next morning I had the first whiff of savoury,

roast meat, heard the clang of the brass workers' hammers, drank green tea at every wayside cafC, saw

the quail fights, and jostled in the noisy throng which

seemed to crowd the streets, and talk vehemently as

if patching up old quarrels and hatching new ones. Amid this medley of virile humanity, of large white turbans, voluminous trousers and hennaed beards, I was in the real East. Then, sitting in an up-to-date

motor-car, amid scenes of old Asia, I felt at home, for was I not on my way to the Capital of Afghanistan, of which little is written and less is known? That

Kabul, the dream of my childhood days, that city of mingled hopes and fears.

The car swished past caravan-camels, slow horse- carriages and pack-ponies till the whitewashed mosques, minarets and spires faded from the eye, and the tortuous defiles of the Khyber Pass stirred my imagination. We negotiated hairpin bends at

hair-raising speed, and I felt safe in the knowledge

A F G H A N I S T A N 81

that I was not a mark for any of my countrymen's

bullets. On we sped past the string of block-houses

crowning the hill-tops, which appeared to me to be

guarding nothing in particular. Away in the hollow

below, in the sun-baked valley, fierce-looking men

ploughed their fields with rifles slung over their

shoulders, and black clothed, veiled tribeswomen, with earthen water vessels on their heads, wended

their weary way to the walled villages far off.

The road at last debouches on the Anglo-Afghan

Frontier, and once beyond the outpost of Turkham

Dekka is reached. Tears dimmed my eyes as I gazed

at the low-roofed houses of Dekka, for was I not on

the soil of the God-gifted Kingdom of the Amirs.

The plains of Jallabad were soon crossed, and

as the call of the evening prayer was summoning the

faithful to the mosques we pulled up at our abode in

Kabul.

There is one remarkable fact about this capital

of Afghanistan that escapes the notice of many

observers. They presume that this town of memories

is wholly associated with the political controversies of

the past; with the rivalries of Britain and Russia;

with Lord Robert skirmishes; with blood feuds. T h e folk-lorist sees in it a host of evidence of culture-

mixing ; the archzologist delights in its associations F

82 W E S T W A R D jT.0 ME-CCA

with lost cities of the earliest civilizations; but no one seems to notice that the future political and moral

evolution of Central Asia is going to begin and end in Afghanistae.

T h e people of that country take their inspiration from the City of Kabul, and that which is of the utmost significance to note is the fact that the present

form of Afghan mentality is a healthy admixture of

Europe and Asia, a happy blending of the East and

the West. This small buffer state has not only felt the Western impact, and is endeavouring to respond

to it wholeheartedly, but is also finding itself often in some awkward predicament as regards the suitability of modern ideas in an essentially conservative, self- sufficient and proud people.

T h e King of Afghanistan is sometimes hard put to it to reconcile the newer order of things with the older prejudices, but since the awakening of a popular and enlightened public opinion in the country his task

is easier now than it was a few years ago. The old

and the new generations are certainly reconciled in their common love of a martial career. The Habibyah College, standing near the Foreign Office, is a noble building. In front of it one can see an old-fashioned Afghan riding a pony, with his black locks falling upon his shoulders, wearing a red and blue uniform,


and galloping his mount. The new Afghan soldier,

with shaven chin, black astrakhan cap, decked in a greenish uniform, walks smartly; with him a would-be

soldier cousin, wearing a brownish suit, trailing along on a bicycle. A third immaculately dressed youth,

with an air of "too much freedom" prances past the building smoking a cigarette. Anon, he sees an elder

emerge from The Wizaratay Kharija (Foreign Office);

he throws away his cigarette; the elder, appreciating

the delicacy of the situation, turns away till their

paths cross, the younger man salutes, the elder

impresses a kiss on the eyebrow of the younger, and a

catastrophe to the age-long traditions of Afghanistan

is averted. For none must smoke, or laugh audibly,

before an elder.

A little farther along one is just facing the gate of

the Foreign Office. This is the only office in Kabul

where work is done behind closed doors. Looking up one notices that a red flag is hoisted, and one is

immediately given the reason. T h e King has been visiting the office. The offices inside are built round a garden, and there is n mosque in one of its corners.

Then one walks on towards the Kabul river. On the bank of it there is always a great crowd of people of

all denominations; rustics of the villages are buying

grcen tea, sugar, and other articles from the booth

84 WESTWARD T O MECCA

shops; in the tea-shops large customers are being

catered for; cup after cup is being quaffed; chunks of

bread are being washed down by large gulps of tea;

Afghan pipes are making audible noises, and talk

flows merrily.

But here one leaves the Deh Afghabi, or old Kabul, and, crossing the bridge, enters into the new

city. Along the bank of the river runs the wall of a

large orchard, and a double-storied house stands circled by it. T h e red flag with the crest of the

hammer and the sickle is hoisted on the building, and the sight of the peeping "comrades " of Moscow

leaves one in no doubt as to the origin of that

Embassy. Only a hundred yards from it stands the great workshop of Kabul, built in a European

fashion. T h e machinery is worked by electricity, the power being brought from Jabulus Siraj, about ten miles from the factory. Everything from howitzers to boots and shoes is turned out from this workshop, and it is entirely controlled by the Afghan Government.

Then there are the German, French, British, Italian and Turkish Consulates and Embassies, and this side of diplomatic life is not a happy one.


When Colonel Keen was demarcating the Anglo-

Afghan Frontier in 1 9 2 1 a Kabul Sirdar of con-

siderable importance told me that a closer union

between Afghanistan and Great Britain would paralyse

the fear of war in Central Asia, and he also hoped that the new Indo-Afghan Frontier might be a link instead of a barrier. Later I heard a similar opinion

expressed in London. But many competent observers

of the Asian High Policy both in the East and the

West aver that if that pious hope is to assume a reality

it will be necessary for both countries to know more

of each other, and approach their common interests with greater sympathy.

The consideration of these facts was never so

necessary as it is to-day, for a rapid shifting of scenes in Asia may well imperil the peace of the world if

European nations, and especially England, continue to stand aloof, watching and wondering over the plethora of events which has stirred up the very soul

of the changing East. Furthermore, Great Britain's break with Russia has opened another avenue of thought to those who, believing in the evil influences of Bolshevist propaganda in Asia, fear its intensifica-

tion in the Middle East on its march towards India.

And in the midst of it all stands Afghanistan,


recognized by England, it is true, as an independent

kingdom, yet merely tolerated as a distant " friend."

Almost the same sentiments prevail in Afghanistan.

But to me it seems little short of a political tragedy

of our times that two neighbours should remain so

remote, when the advancing needs of the world

demand a closer connection and a more. intimate

approach between the people of this country and those

of my own; especially at a time when the political drama of the rising, revolting East will be enacted in and around the Kingdom of Kabul.

When I think of H.M. Amir Amanullah of

Afghanistan I cannot but recall a date which stands out prominently in the recent history of my country.

One fine morning, not so many years ago, the Amir's

bodyguard was drawn up in front of the Palace in Kabul. Young officers galloped their horses through the lines shouting Turkish commands to their men; motor-cars were clamouring at the gate, as a few privileged elders of the city by the garden railing watched the parade. Anon a silence ~ e r v a d e d the scene. " Alla Hazrat, Amir Sahib ! " shouted the

Chamberlain. T h e respectful silence was immediate

and impressive; one could hear one's heart beat

as the stout, well-dressed, middle-aged monarch Habibullah of the God-gifted Kingdom of Kabul


stepped out from the main door of his ~ a l a c e . H e

walked slowly between the rows of soldiers. A

number of Sirdars, high officials and Court hangers-on

followed, and watched him enter the car which was

to take him to Lughman, where he was bound for a

little rest and some Shikar. That parade, that

gorgeous spectacle, is as vivid in my mind as the last phase of him. As we all know, he never returned

to his capital, but rests for ever at Lughman. Does

it not show what lay behind the scenes?

When the news of H.M. Habibullah Khan's death

reached Kabul the whole city was lunged into deep

mourning, for, despite his many drawbacks, the late

King was loved by an influential section of the nobles.

Indeed, towards the latter part of his reign, the late

Amir more truly represented the vested interests of

the nobility of his country than of the Afghan nation.

Nor did his visit to India stand him in good stead,

for ever since his return from Hindustan both his

power and prestige were on the downward course,

till an assassin's bullet sent him to his eternal rest.

Mourning though there was, it remained only

superficial with those who mattered in Kabul, and

busybodies were bestirred. Was Afghanistan to be precipitated into one of those internecine wars which

visit that country at the close of an Afghan monarch's


life? There was great fear of it. But, paradoxical

as it may appear, on this one occasion Afghan history

did not repeat itself, for H . M . Amanullah jumped

into the arena, realizing that while the country was still reeling under the impact of the blow he must act

instantly, decidedly and firmly. As events showed, that quick decision which he put into practical form,

saved an internecine struggle, and secured for him the throne into the bargain. The triumph of Ghazi Amanullah is not entirely due to the Anglo-Afghan war of 1919, which many Jingo Imperialists believe to be the case, for he had won the hearts of his people long before that affair, even before his father's death. H e was always a hero to the man in the street, for he had realized that public opinion among the Afghans was crystallizing.

On ascending the throne of a new Afghanistan he continued to bestow attention on popular aspirations, and, perceiving that the people were fretting under the yoke of the nobles, he yielded to the rising tide

of Afghan public opinion. H e emphasized the view -which disgusted the nobility-that he was the representative of the masses, a king risen out of the

humble ranks of his kinsmen. Again, he owes his further popularity to the fact that, being only a third

swn of his father, he had the good fortune not to be

A F G H A N I S T A N

born as heir to the throne, and he thus escaped

the hot-house upbringing of would-be Amirs of Afghanistan. His appreciation of the rights of the

people coupled with his unaffected and lain manners account for his-success. He goes about disguised at

nights in the streets of Kabul to examine the conditions of life of the poorer people. H e is the idol

of the army, and since he has given orders that the

general meeting of the tribesmen of the eastern

'districts of his country shall take place every year,

where all matters appertaining to the moral and

material interests of the clansmen are to be discussed,

he has now been looked upon as a champion of a representative form of government. H e is devoting

a great deal of thought to matters educational.

Yet Amir Amanullah has not been alone in trans-

forming old Afghan scenes, for two very significant personalities have loomed large in respect to the new

Afghanistan. One of them, Sirdar Mahmood Baig Turzi, immediately after the proclamation of Afghan

independence, was entrusted with the work of the

Foreign Office at Kabul. And could one have imagined that an Afghan noble living in exile in the

Levant and married to a Syrian lady, was one day

destined to be both the Foreign Minister at Kabul

and the father-in-law of the King of the Afghans?


I n his leisure hours this veteran politician of

Afghanistan still keeps up his pursuit of writing

fiction in his inimitable Persian style.

T h e other figure of considerable importance is

General Nadir Khan, once the Commander-in-Chief

of the Afghan forces, and till recently Afghan Minister

in Paris. Like Mahmood Baig Turzi, he was also an exile in India, at Dehra Dun, till his father was permitted to return to Kabul. General Nadir Khan has the rare distinction of being both a diplomat and a man of the sword. During his term of office at the

head of the army people stigmatized him as cruel to the core, but he was cruel because he was engaged in a cruel game. T h e analogy in this respect between

his reputation and that of the late Amir Abdur Rah- man is close, for when the Amir was asked whether he did not consider he ruled with an iron hand-"Yes,

I do so," he is said to have replied, "because I rule an iron people." Nadir Khan's case is similar, for one cannot afford to have a kind heart when one goes out to kill or be killed. No three men in Afghanistan have so filled the drama of action of their country within living memory as have H.M. the Amir, Tarzai and Nadir Khan. They will have an enduring place in the Middle-Eastern history of our times.

The Government of the country can at best


be called a benevolent autocracy. T h e chief

authority is vested in the Amir, or H.M. King

Amanullah Khan, who is the third son of his father.

This young monarch is one of those remarkable

which arise once in a while in a nation,

and for a man of thirty-four years of age, in whose

life so many events have crowded within the last seven years, he is little short of a genius. T o rule

over Afghanistan is a difficult matter at any time, but

when one notices that he sits on the throne under

such pressure of political events and still finds his

throne fairly secure, one feels that such rule deserves

more than an ordinary comment and appreciation.

The young King's one and great 'desire is to see

his nation amongst the foremost peoples of the

modern world. T o that end he has inaugurated a

system of education efficient in the extreme. No

less than eight hundred schools have already sprung

up all over the country within the last two years. A number of boys are sent for education to different

parts of Europe, whilst others are being educated by the French and the German tutors at Kabul.

In matters of diplomatic representation Afghan-

istan is now represented in most countries in the

West, nor is the army being neglected; and in his

public speeches this remarkable ruler of modern


Afghanistan never fails to allude to a saying of his

grandfather. T h e army must be the first and last care of the Kings of Kabul, " lest an Afghan forgets

the touch of the handle of the sword." I n matters of military training the Afghans have

always been very keen; their geographical position demands it, and this idea is hardened into a passion

at Kabul to-day. Conforming to the changing

scenes of its neighbours the Afghan Government has devoted a great deal of attention to aviation.

But this side of military preparedness is not devoid of some humour, because in certain parts of Afghan- istan the good and simple folk of outlandish areas

do not quite understand the aeroplane. In the back of beyond, amongst the village peasants, an aeroplane is regarded as a device of the devil, something invested with supernatural attributes.

This truth came to me during my journey, one

particular night, and with startling fashion. I was

then journeying in the far and wild hilly tracts, came to a village, and halted for the night at an inn. Being particularly tired I strolled in the fields,

offered my prayers and got to bed fairly early. A hush came upon the scene soon after dusk because no caravan was staying there, and there were not more than twenty people in the inn.


In the dead of night I heard someone scratching

at my door. T h e noise awakened me, so I ~ o u r e d

some more crude oil into the lamp that gave light,

and smoke, in my room, and moved about thinking

that this might frighten away anyone with evil

designs. I was not wrong, for the scratching stopped, and I got into bed again. But no sooner

had I covered myself than my eyes fell upon the

blade of a large knife which was thrust through a

chink in the door. Not only was it thrust through

but it also began to enlarge the chink, and soon cut

what appeared to me to be a hole in the board. I was so dumbfounded that before I could realize what

was happening a fairly large hole had been made.

The blade was then sharply taken out, and, as I fumbled for my revolver, to my utter astonishment

through the hole came an animal's paw, hairy but

small. This paw felt for the chain with which I had fastened the door inside. The sight scared me, for, although I had been warned against thieves, I could

not quite become reconciled to the idea that an animal

could so intelligently cut a hole in the wooden panel

and wield a large knife.

I was still trembling with excitement at the sight

of this weird hand when I found my revolver, and,

grasping it in sheer nervousness, fired twice in rapid


succession. But the hand was still busy, perhaps busier. So, thinking that I had missed the mark,

I fired a third time, then a fourth and fifth shot followed as rapidly as I could press the trigger.

.The hand still scratched vigorously within an inch

of the chain, so I flung the empty revolver savagely

at the hand and hit it. But simultaneously I heard a hue and cry in the compound outside my room.

" Catch the thief ! " " T h e murderer ! " they shouted.

"Capture, shoot his monkey! " Torches were

lighted, ponies broke their ropes, shots were fired,

the yelling and shouting was nerve-wracking. With

trembling hands I opened my door and was

swallowed up in the general din and confusion.

T h e thief had, however, got away, though replying to the fire as he ran.

When quiet was restored the ~ropr ie tor of the

inn, and other travellers, came to examine my room.

" T o cool you down " as they said. I t was " that

notorious thief," they informed me, " who has trained

a monkey as his assistant." Nothing to be nervous

about they thought; and, when I spoke of the weird-

ness of the tugging hand, despite my five revolver

shots, they stroked their beards, and one actually

ventured to state that I was perhaps not a crack shot.

Then another, toying with my revolver, proposed a

AFGHANISTAN

closer examination of the bullet marks on the door.

Our amazement was great to find that no bullets had hit the wood at all. Where had the bullets gone?

A further search revealed the fact that all the bullets

from my revolver cartridges had been removed, also

those from my spare ammunition.

Then I remembered that I had left my weapon in its belt hanging on a mulberry tree under which

I had washed myself, and I had forgotten to wear it

when I had gone for my walk in the fields outside

the village.

Further discourse was interrupted by the whirring

noise of an approaching aeroplane. Everyone ran

out into the courtyard, looked up in wonderment at

the tiny light of the aircraft, and, muttering prayers

and shouts of " Curses be on the devil," as they spat

on the ground. When the 'plane had disappeared

they stood in awe-stricken silence. " The devil is passed," they whispered. " The evil Spirit has

flown away," and, with prayers on their lips everyone

went to his respective rest.

An unheard degree of latitude has now been

granted by the new Amir to public opinion, and a

representative form of government best suited to Afghan conditions is granted. That does not weaken his position, for the present ruler of Kabul is now

WESTWARD TO M E C C A

more truly the representative of his people. He has escaped the hot-house upbringing of would-be

monarchs, and having risen out of the humble ranks

of his countrymen has learnt the art of ruling with

safety and tact. But of his court and courtiers! How truly does the Persian problem run, " Fear not

the King, but the guard a t the gate."

T h e Kabuli is so kind that he might be called

cruel, for his hospitality will ruin your digestion.

As soon as you arrive a t his house a goat will be

killed, a feast prepared, dried and fresh fruit heaped

on the table. You must consume all, and what you

cannot you must take home with you. Then his

neighbour, in turn, hears of your arrival, and you

must be his guest. This cycle seems to be never-

ending, till a day comes when you are faced with

the fact that salvation alone lies in escaping from the

capital into the heart of the country where no one

knows you. There again you would be fattened and

feasted if you did not deny that you were a holy man;

for every stranger in the Afghan uplands is supposed

to be either a rogue or a holy man. Sometimes

the one does not substantially differ from the other.

I was in this predicament when I finally left the town for the country. Nor can I forget a certain

AFGHANISTAN 97

day in March when the Kabul river had overflowed its banks in the region of the Punjshair valley.

Sun-stricken tracts came to life once more, and everywhere stretches of rich, green sprouts of wheat

delighted the eye, till the mouth of the valley

terminated in rocky tracts.

Sitting there on one of the green knolls I watched, away in the distance, the string of camels

lumLering along, pensively carrying merchandise

from Chinese-Turkestan to the Afghan markets.

The disappearance and reappearance of those

dromedaries, as they wound their way so silently

through the gorges, I cannot forget: nor yet the distant, rhythmical tinkle of bells hanging from their

hairy necks, the barking of the caravan dogs, and the

shouting of swarthy Tajiks. The whole panorama

so fascinated me that, within two hours, I , too, was

in that caravan, bound for the city of Shakadara.

That town owes its chief importance to the fact that

it is one of the halting places of the caravans on their

weary trail. There is only one serai-rest house-

there, which is fully occupied on the arrival of a

caravan. But pilgrims like myself have consideration shown to them wherever they go, so, weary as

I was, the innkeeper gave me a shelter despite the overcrowded accommodation.

C

WESTWARD T O MECCA

After some food, I betook myself to the bazaar,

where a poetical contest was in progress. A large hall in a wealthy merchant's house was where the master-singers of the village were gathered together.

At the door two huge beacon lights, aided by smoky

torches, guided the way up to a carpeted floor. As I stepped in scholarly eyes were turned on me, so, folding my knees I sat in an obscure position.

Poem after poem was read amidst the vociferous

admiration of the audience. But the time came, as was inevitable, when it was my turn to read my effort. But, as I am not " touched " by poetry I was lost for the moment. I could not stand the strain of so many pairs of learned and expectant eyes turned upon me. But recovering very soon from this scholarly

attack, for something within helped me, I rose to the occasion, and, to my amazement, found myself reciting. I narrated loudly and long, I know not what, but the attempt must have been frail for the words "he is but a ~ i l g r i m " reached me.

This meeting ended shortly after midnight, when, returning to my abode, I retired to bed. But with

the braying of donkeys, the bubbling of the dromedaries, frequent barking of street dogs and the snoring of Tajiks, I remained very much awake, so acting

AFGHANISTAN 99

as an involuntary guard against all luggage-lifters with whom such Asian cities abound. Added to all

this a home-sick Kabuli insisted upon playing the

pensive melody on his flute of that beautiful Kabul

song, " Wai ! Baghay Gull," " Wai ! Baghay

Gull" (0 ! My Garden of Flowers), meaning thereby

Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.

Early in the morning I made my way to the

mosque, and hardly was the prayer over when I heard the booming of guns. For the moment no

one could understand the reason for it ; some thought that brigands had come down from the " indepen-

'dent" uplands. But we were not long left in doubt.

Farmers ran about in wild confusion, for this time

it was no invasion of freebooters but of locusts.

The guns were intended to divert this cloud of destruction from the district. I t was, however,

otherwise ordained. Millions and millions of locusts had covered a space of ten miles outside the city,

they had then come over the town, flying hither and

thither, buzzing, whirring and causing a sound as if

heavy showers of rain and hail were falling. The green fields on which they settled had become a

glittering yellow. All the mulberry trees, veget- ables, grass, everything green, had 'disappeared as

i f by magic. The wheatfields consisted only of

roo W E S T W A R D TO MECCA

stalks of straw. T h e insects penetrated into houses, mosques, kitchens, stables and blinded the people in

the street with the density of their number. For a little over half-an-hour the locusts remained in Shakadara, and left the " Green City," as the town

is known in Afghanistan, unsightly and changed to

brown. Then they flew off. But the stench remain-

ing was so powerful that till midday, I could not get it out of my nostrils.

W e then journeyed on towards the north where

the Punjshair valley becomes narrower and more awe-

inspiring, and here I and Rask, a Norwegian,

intended to call a halt for leisure to finish a book. In the wayside villages I met again that

abundant hospitality that characterizes hill-men all over the world; so I stayed with a farmer, and had another glimpse of family life in an Afghan village.

CHAPTER IV

AFGHAN WOMEN

THE women of Afghanistan have a race distinction

in the matter of henpecking their husbands not only

quickly but effectively. Some folk have even

hazarded the opinion that they manipulate the affair

by witchcraft, but I have found that facts do not

substantiate the contention.

There is certainly one case very vividly impressed

in my micd where something of domestic necromancy

may have been resorted to. I was the whole 'day

shooting with a farmer in his fields, and in the heat

of the chase we went farther than we intended.

When rain began to fall we hurried homewards, and

then discovered that the combined rations we carried

consisted of some dried biscuits. Uncontrollable

hunger accentuated fatigue, but the farmer, being a

very orthodox Mohammedan, could not eat the

English made biscuits lest they contained the fat of

swine, and said, " what you have not seen made you

can't trust ."

The wind and rain swept the fields, and tempers I 0 1


as well as our path were frequently lost and regained,

till we espied the dim lights of the village twinkling

through the woods. I t was his wife, thought the farmer, who was entirely to blame for all this

" hardship." H e would say something to her this

time which he had not said since he was lost in the

blizzard a year ago. And when Abdullah, the

farmer, took snuff after snuff, I knew he was

thoroughly upset.

At last we arrived at the house. There was

then one great growl and then a hush. Not another

sound till lifting the curtain I saw Abdullah

devouring the roasted! meat. H e had already

finished a big portion of a plate full of rice, and was

too busy to notice me. " This is an admirable

woman, this wife of mine," he said, " look ! " He pointed to the residue of the feast. " All this

cooking for us." Next day he bought her a ruby

ring of Badakhshan fame.

But it is not in the manner of attending to the

physical comforts of their menfolk that the Afghan

women excel, for the warlike Afghans are just as

fond as any men in Europe of seeing well-dressed

women, and women who are capable of a " make up." This tendency of the mind has engendered amongst

the Afghan women a degree of love for self-beauti-

AFGHAN WOMEN 103

fication which is not generally known. Many kinds

of pomades, cosmetics, powders, and even lip salve,

are therefore used. A paste, for instance, prepared

of grounded almonds, with the white of eggs and

jasmine oil, is used to refresh the complexion.

Kohal is lavishly applied to the eyes, and powder

is imported all the way from Kashghar for the poor

and the rich alike at Kabul. I t is first of all rubbed

over the face and allowed to stay on for an hour,

then the face is washed, not with soap but with a

sort of oatmeal flour, and another coating of powder

is used. This method is supposed to produce a very

'delicate flesh tint, and over it just a suspicion of red

is gabbed on the cheeks. Paste freshly prepared

from henna leaves is smeare'd over the nails which

reddens them, but none bother about the lifting of

cheeks, double chins, or of dieting for slimness any

more than of fine ankles or good insteps.

Generally speaking, women observe Purdah,

that is to say they do not appear unveiled before

strangers, but their lives are none the less pleasant

because their women friends visit them almost every

'day, and in their own large gardens open air feasts

are arranged. Afghan women are also very fond of

paying calls, and there are no fixed times for callers,

although, quite contrary to the Western method, it


is appreciated if a friend just drops in at the meal

hour. I t brightens the food they say. The life of

the women is full of petty superstitions. Thursday

nights are regarded with special dread, for it is

believed that " evil ones " fly from the East towards

the West. An unmarried woman must on no account

wear a green scarf, otherwise the fairies would cast

their shadow upon her and deprive her of her senses.

Under a starry sky, too, no white pudding must be

eaten, for it is sure to attract the evil eye.

T h e marriageable age is about eighteen to twenty

for the girl and twenty-five for the boy, and all

matrimonial alliances are arranged by the parents.

Hardly ever would one meet a man who has more

than one wife, and divorce is not a private matter

but a public affair, and every effort is made to bring

pressure to bear upon the wife and the husband to

continue the married life and not resort to separation.

A divorced man or woman is always regarded more

or less as a social outcast.

Education amongst the women is increasing very

rapidly, and even now she, in every case, acts as the

family cashier. Very often also matters of great

importance are decided on the sole advice of women,

and their voice counts for a great deal more than is

generally supposed. In battle the women fight

AFGHAN W O M E N 105

shoulder to shodder with men, and there is not a

single Afghan woman who might not be regarded as

a member of a " reserve unit " in case of war. Many

Afghan women beat their menfolk a t tent-pegging

and horse-racing during the annual feasts of the Idd

which marks the end of the month of fasting.

Ultimately I reached a little house in a remote

spot, and there set about writing some portion of

my book, before we started once more upon our

pilgrimages through a portion of Central Asia and

Persia.

CHAPTER V

THE MAGIC HOUSE IN AN AFGHAN GLEN

IT was one evening whilst busily writing in this

village that, for the twentieth time, I flung down my pen, mopped my forehead and remarked to Rask that

the room was growing unbearably warm. Outside

it was a raw end of September night-the upland of

Punjshair in Afghanistan can be cold-but, although

we had not yet ventured upon the lighting of fires,

the atmosphere of the room in which I was writing

was as sultry as that of an afternoon in July. Rask sat at work near the window, and was,

therefore, less likely to suffer from the high temper-

ature, but I had doffed my jacket nearly an hour before, and now sat in my shirtsleeves with crumpled

hair, collarless and tieless, as might a busy man in midsummer.

66 Rask," I said to my colleague, " we must really

get at the meaning of this intolerable stuffiness.

Why, there is a frowst in this room that would

frighten an inspector of factories in England, yet it's

as chilly outside as ever I knew it to be at this time 106

THE MAGIC H O U S E 107

of year. What does it mean, in the name of Allah?

If this wasn't a one-storie'd house I'd be certain that

this room was above the kitchen, and that the cook was capable of beating any boilerman at his own

job." Rask grunted and went on with his work. H e

was a phlegmatic Norwegian friend and together we

had come to rusticate for a while in what we had

been told was the quietest part of Afghanistan; partly

to rest our travel-tired bones, partly to complete a

book.

T h e rather large and rambling cottage we h i d

selecte'd, built after the Paghman houses in English

fashion, was an unpretentious enough dwelling. A one-storied, sprawling stone house, almost of the

bungalow type. Such a house, indeed, as one finds

by the hundred in any of the eastern countries. We had no lack of space, and the room we had selected

for writing was a pleasant place enough, looking out upon a wide stretch of terraced cultivation, till lost

amongst the high walls of the mountains some seven miles away.

The cottage had, however, one peculiarity, which

I must admit decidedly jarred upon me, although it did not seem to affect my immovable companion in

the slightest 'degree. Its walls, which seemed to be


composed of a hard and uncommon kind of cement,

were painted in the colours and similitude of fire, so

that they had the effect of a mass of leaping, yellow-

topped flames, so painfully realistic in appearance

that, at night, and in the vagaries of lamp-light, one

was hard put to it not to believe that it danced and

writhed with the sinuous movement of real fire. To

heighten the illusion the roof had been painted to

resemble whirling smoke-clouds. T h e walls were

pictureless, and it was obvious that any attempt to

decorate them in this manner would have resulted in

an effect of the most hopeless incongruity.

I am one of those people upon whom the bizarre

leaves more than a passing impression, and the

fantastic background which daily confronted me

began to exert an influence the reverse of what I had

hoped for in this quiet place. As the days went by I grew so peevish and irritable that to anyone less

immovable than Rask I should have proved an almost

insupportable companion. W e had taken the place

for three months only, but had a longer tenancy been

necessary I would certainly have insisted upon the

papering and painting of our writing-room. How-

ever, as the first month of our tenancy drew to a

close, I found myself gradually becoming more acclimatized to the mimic conflagration which

THE MAGIC HOUSE 109

environed me, although I continued to murmur

against the questionable taste and Dantesques

imagination which had conceived a decorative

scheme so utterly opposed to all cultured notions

of a domestic interior.

As I laid down my pen, and rose to open the

door, Rask wheeled in his chair and confronted me

with a grim smile of amusement. " I fear, my

friend, that your surroundings are beginning to

influence you unduly," he said. "You are becoming

neurotic, or, as I have had occasion to notice lately,

you appear to be on the verge of a nervous break-

down. In a word, this rather unusual colour-scheme

has got on your nerves."

" Nonsense," I said, annoyed that my weakness

should have become so evident. " I certainly don't

like the general effect, but as to its having the least reflection upon my nerves, you're quite mistaken."

" I think not," he said 'dryly. cc I'm positive,

indeed, that your complaints regarding the tempera-

ture of this room are due to nothing else than the

effect of its colour-scheme on your imagination.

You're a sensitive man, Shah. I have seen several

cases of the kind in Christiansand. You must check

this brain-sickness; you must fight it. I t is all pure

fancy, believe me. You must continue to work in

I 10 WESTWARD TO MECCA

this room and you must say to yourself, ' This heat is reflected from the painted walls upon my mind.

I t is not real, only imaginary.' " " Fiddlesticks," I retorted.

" Yet I feel no intense heat," he said with his everlasting smile, " how do you account for that? "

" By t h e fact that by nature you're ticketed among the cold-blooded animals," I retorted with

that sturdy Afghan impatience which rejects personal analysis as an alien absurdity. " I believe you

could sit in a cook-house wrapped in a Yakut bearskin."

Rask laughed good-naturedly, and saying that

he was tired, and would go to bed, left the room. I continued at my desk, as I was behind with my part of the work, and in view of the impatience of the publishers it behoved me to hasten. So I toiled away, unconscious of time or surroundings.

For at least a couple of hours I continud to transcribe from my diary, too much occupied to feel any real inconvenience from the temperature of

which I had complained. At length, however, it became painfully apparent to me that if the heat of the room had been uncomfortable, and even stifling' before, it had now reached the bounds of human endurance.

THE MAGIC H O U S E I I I

Gazing around, seeking some solution of the

inexplicable condition I started from my seat with a

cry of amazement, for the wall directly in front of

me seemed to be aglow with a smouldering fire.

The counterfeit flames with which it was covered

appeared to be writhing in the first slow movement

of gathering conflagration. I looked at the lamp.

I t certainly jumped and flickered as most lamps do

when their oil supply is nearly at an end, but by no

means in a manner to create such an illusion as I had just witnessed. Glancing back at the walls I saw that their flame-pattern had become once more

quiescent.

I then swore with all the irritable feebleness of

the unstrung-that kind of profanity which in man

takes the place of an hysterical outburst in women,

and, turning out the lamp with shaking fingers,

hurried from the room. Was it a trick of the eye- sight, bred of recent illusion and sudden gloom, or

'did I really see a dull, red glow, as out of the

heart of smouldering ashes, glimmer from the wall ?

I spent an uncomfortable and almost sleepless night, and, next morning, after breakfast, I announced my intention of aropping work for the

day, and taking a rather prolonged tramp, on the

WESTWARD TO MECCA

plea that I felt shaken and upset by the occurrence

of the night. Rask heartily backed my resolution, so, donning my ulster, I struck westwards, my

objective being a mosque to which the local guide

laid the somewhat extravagant claim of Abbaside

origin.

T h e air was clear and crisp, and held the chill promise of October, from the advent of which,

indeed, we were only a day removed; and as I tramped between bronzing hedgerows, and noticed

how the ripeness of autumn had mellowed the quaint

Afghan country, I felt how good was the outside of

even the cosiest cottage for a man whose tastes had never run to the confinement of rooms. I covered

the three miles to the little, old mosque like a lad in training, and, passing through the garden gate,

walked up the overgrown drive and cast about for

a means of entrance to the low-domed, time-honoured building, which seemed to hold promise of a rare, inner beauty.

AS I prospected the mullah, a soldierly, middle- aged figure, with little resemblance to the ancient whom one usually associates with such an office, made his appearance, and under his guidance I was well rewarded for my walk by the sight of the wonderful, arched building that would have aroused envy in the

THE MAGIC H O U S E 1 1 3

hearts of many keepers of lesser places. H e proved . . .

quite as inquisitive, however, as if he had boasted

the eighty years odd of the average mullah, and had

soon wormed sufficiently into my confidence to learn

from whence I came, and where I was staying in the

neighbourhood. " A comfortable house, sir, T h e

Jumma," he said, " though it wasn't built yesterday.

Are you staying for long, sir ? " " For three months only," I replied.

" Yes, it's usually a short let," he chattered on. ( C It's a summer-house, so to speak, I never remember

seeing it occupied in the autumn months, so far back

as I can recollect."

"You say it is old," I remarked, "how old would

it be? " 66 " Oh, not so old as houses go," he replied, a

hundred years maybe. They say that one of the

Kafir Princes built it for his house. And he brought

a woman. She was a foreign lady, an Indian, if I remember rightly, and the story goes that Ramat

Khan, who was a John Company man before he

became a Moslim, went to India and brought the

woman with him, but could not put up with her

heathen ways, so built The Jumma and housed

her there. For the clergy would always frown down

upon them." .H

WESTWARD TO MECCA

" Perhaps she was responsible for the painted

room," I said, more to myself than to my informpt,

" you've heard of that, I suppose ? " " Oh, there's talk of that too. Fool's talk," he

laughed. " Some of the folk about here believe that

the window of that room glows red at times, as if

the inside were on fire. That's what she's capable

of, sir. I t is wonderful. They even fix the time of

the year in which it is supposed to blaze, if I'm not

wearying you."

" What time of the year? " I asked, being now

very interested.

" Oh, some time near about now, but I take little

heed of such talk. Moslims do not believe in superstitions."

When I returned at the lunch time I entered abruptly and found Rask pouring over a sheet of

paper covered with letters in some unknown Eastern script. So occupied was he that he did not notice

my presence until I spoke to him, when he started almost guiltily.

" Ah, Shah," he cried, " back already! I am just hammering away at this inscription. Can't quite make it out."

" What inscription ? " I asked.

" The inscription over the door," he replied,

THE MAGIC H O U S E 1 1 5

looking rather foolish. " Haven't you noticed it

before ? " " I certainly noticed something of the sort," I

admitted, " but I always thought that it was a part

of the decorative scheme of the room. What does

it say in any case? "

" I really can't say," he muttered confusedly, " it

is in a very ancient form of Sanskrit, but I cannot

discover the precise purport of it, the meaning is so

obscure."

" In Sanskrit, you say. Why it must be the

work of the lady who stayed in this house." And I told him what the mullah had said. As I did so I noticed his face grow grave.

" My friend, let me have that translation," I begged. " Sanskrit, old or new, never bothered you

very long. You are keeping something back, Rask,

out with it, like a good fellow. I'm simply con-

sumed with curiosity."

His face grew even more determined.

" No, Shah," he said, in his deep, slow voice,

" no, my dear friend, it is not good that you should

know this thing. You must keep your mind at rest,

and ask me nothing more about it."

" Rubbish ! " I rapped out. " Don't be mysterious.

You know how I dislike it."


" No," he said decidedly, " I am not going to tell

you. Why, you're as pale as death, man. You're

shaking all over. You should have had a real rest

before commencing work down here. You have

really never got over the hardships of our journey.

You're worn out, and on the verge of a serious break-

down, if you have not already contracted one. We must leave this place a t once as it does not suit you."

" Rask," I said angrily, " you must tell me what

you mean. There is something queer. You are

keeping some matter of vital importance from me. I insist upon knowing what it is."

W e were still arguing over this when my servant

came in and told me that an outrider had arrived

post haste from Kabul, where my presence on business of urgency was requested.

" Capital ! " exclaimed Rask, " it is a godsend.

Get into the saddle, and stay a night or two in

Kabul. Go with a shooting party. Better still,

don't come back at all, and I will join you in a

couple of days, and we will write in the mulberry avenue there."

" 1 can't give up a three months' tenancy for a whim," I replied. ( L I will return to-morrow

evening."

No, Shah, not to-morrow evening," said Rask

THE MAGIC HOUSE 117

impressively. " I have a good reason for speaking

as I do."

" Well, the next evening then," I said, and went

to my room to pack my kit-bag.

When I came back to the writing-room I was

surprised to see Rask removing the furniture from the room. Desks and chairs littered the hall, and a

great pail of what looked like whitewash stood in a

corner from which the carpet had been removed.

" What on earth are you up to now? " I asked,

" you speak of leaving the place, and I find you

making preparations for a sort of pre-Christmas

clean-up. ,,

" Please ask no questions," he replied in his

quaint manner, " something has got to be done here,

Shah, something that should have been done long

ago. That is all."

" Well, I haven't time to argue about it," I said,

looking at my watch, " but I 'don't think that you are treating me fairly, that is all."

" You must trust me, my friend. Am I not

worthy of your trust? " " Oh, that's all right," I said, in a shamefaced

way, and pressing his hand with perhaps more

perfunctoriness than usual I hurried away.

Under the starlit sky when, during my gallop, I


let my mount slow down to an easy pace, I had

enough leisure to ponder upon Rask's extraordinary

preparations. That they were undertaken in view of what I had told him, and of what he had gleaned

from the inscription, which he had declined to

translate to me, 1 was positive.

His insistence that I should not return on the

following night had the precise effect of making me

resolved to do so, whatever the consequences. Then

I remembered his predisposition to the mysterious;

that natural affinity with all that was mystical and

fantastic which had lured him from the wards of the

psychological hospital in his native Christiansand,

and had made him a wanderer in the dark places of

the East. That he had discovered some mystical

mare's nest in connection with that uncanny room I felt certain. But I promised myself that I would

not miss the climax of his esoteric efforts, whatever

they might be, and would return in good time to

surprise him in the midst of his mysteries.

My business in Kabul was soon transacted, and

I spent the time chiefly in visiting friends and relations. The next day also I idled away, and

a little before the afternoon prayer saddled my horse and made my way back and up to my hill cottage.

THE MAGIC HOUSE I 19

I t would be dusk when the half-way-house village

could be reached where the Khan would insist upon my staying the night. In Afghanistan one dares not

refuse when hospitality is extended, and hospitality

is always extended, but the thought of solving the mystery of The Jumma preyed on my mind. I resolved, therefore, to break the hoary tradition for

once, so, leaving my horse at my host's house, and

under cover of darkness I walked up the narrow hill-

pathway. Slowly I stumbled along, up and down,

round and up, till I was only a mile from the little

cluster of trees where our cottage nestled.

I now became conscious of an odd feeling of

restlessness, to which I had been a stranger during

my short stay in Kabul. Try as I might I could not

shake off a sense of foreboding for which it was impossible to account.

October was now upon us, and the evening

seemed to hold a deeper quantity of darkness than it had done of late. I now walked quicker, breasting the last, slight rise that I knew would bring me in sight of the cottage; and when, at last, the long

incline was passed I peered through the fast gather-

ing shadows in the direction of The Jumma, urge'd by the curious apprehension that was upon me.

So dark had it grown that for a moment or two I


failed to discern the house, although it could not

have been more than a mile away; but at length I espied its dim, straggling shape lying beyond the tall

old trees that partially screened it from the East, and

a t once I noticed that the window of our room was

brightly lit. Perhaps Rask had guessed at my

return, and had, perhaps, left the windows open to

guide me on my way.

As I drew nearer I was at first astonished, then

alarmed, to notice that what I had taken for a

brilliant illumination now seemed to be like the glow

of a furnace. Gripping my revolver firmly I broke

into a run, and with every step I made the blaze

seemed to grow more intense. When at last I came

within some four hundred yards of the cottage I could see through the unshuttered windows the

furious glare of the great conflagration. The

interior of the room resembled a seething cauldron

of flame, and a roaring sound borne on the still night

air completed the assurance that what I beheld was

fire of no ordinary kind but a veritable rnaelstrijm of

flaming destruction. I rushed up the little drive and

dashed into the hall, the riot and the tempest of

consuming flame surging in my ears like the noise

of a high wind.

" Rask," I shouted, " Rask, where are you? "

THE MAGIC HOUSE 12 I

There was no answer to my call, but from behind

the door of the painted room came the tumult of a

great burning. I beat upon it with both hands,

calling upon my friend. That he was inside some

instinct assured me. In an agony of terror I tore a t

the handle and wrenched the door open.

As I did so the surging roar ceased with startling

suddenness. I dashed into the room. There lay

Rask, or what at first seemed a charred heap in his

likeness. I carried him to his bedroom, and tore

his smouldering clothes from his scorched body.

Again and again I called on the servant, but after-

wards I learnt that my friend, full of what he had set

out to do, and anxious to be left alone to accomplish

his purpose, had given him permission to stay with

friends for the night. With infinite difficulty I succeeded in getting him to bed, and then ran for a

C( local, Eastern medicine man " half a mile away,

who returned with me and gave it as his opinion that

Rask's injuries were serious, and his chances of

recovery but slender.

During the next few days I nursed him sedu-

lously, and during that time had a full opportunity

of examining the painted room. I t bore not the

slightest trace of burning, but I noticed that the walls had been drenched with lime, and that the


painted flames which had covered them were now

only partly visible.

Weary weeks passed ere Rask recovered suffi-

ciently to be able to tell what had happened on that

dreadful night. When at last he was able to speak without the fear of relapse I listened to one of the

strangest stories it has been my lot to hear. He admitted that the meaning of the partly worn inscrip-

tion, which he had found over the doorway, had

been clear to him from the first. But I will let him tell his own story, just as he told it to me, ~ropped

up in bed, his hands and head still swathed in bandages.

11 At first I was sceptical regarding the genuine- ness of the inscription," he said with a wry smile, " but when you told me what you had heard from the mullah about the occupation of this cottage by an Indian lady, and the local legend, I could not help feeling the extraordinary heat from which you suffered in that terrible room, and which I myself experienced in a lesser degree, was not a thing of imagination. I became still more suspicious after you told me that you saw the walls glowing on the night before you went to Kabul, and resolved to make an attempt to probe the matter. The trans- lated inscription runs as follows: ' Nalla the pious, the servant of Durga, makes this gift of painted walls to the goddess, so that it may blaze annually

THE MAGIC H O U S E 123

on the day of her festival, and may consume any who dares to defile the sanctity of her shrine.'

" The goddess Durga is a form of the terrible Kali, a deity worshipped extensively among the Hindus. Kali is the ' Black One,' the wife of Siva, whose impure worship is accompanied by picturesque but sanguinary rites. She is the special deity of the Thug caste, who perform constant sacrifices to her.

" At once it became clear to me that the Hindu lady in question must have been one of her devotees, and had probably been repudiated by her husband because of her irregularities which such a religious connection would undoubtedly render of constant occurrence. Desirous of propitiating the goddess in the manner peculiar to her caste, that is, by lighting a great fire in her honour once a year, and consuming within it human beings or animals, and unable to accomplish her pagan intentions in this country, she adopted magical means of doing SO."

" Magical means? " I said. " I don't follow

you. 9,

" I am not surprised, Shah," he replied with the

same wry smile, " but you must bear with me. As you know, in many countries, and especially in

ancient Egypt and India, that which is painted is

believed to possess a latent quality of reality, which

only requires the urgency of a spell, or incantation, to render it actively existent. Nalla piously prays

that the painted walls may flash in flames at a stated

WESTWARD TO MECCA

period each year; that is, on the anniversary of the

fire-festival of the goddess she adored. I took the trouble to ascertain the precise date of this festival,

and found it commences in the last days of

September, and continues during the first two or

three days into October. As you absolutely refused to leave the house I feared a disaster and, therefore,

conceived it a duty to try and render the spell harm-

less. I recollected that one of the most favoured of the ancient methods of cleansing a heathen shrine,

and ridding it of malign influences, is by the applica-

tion of quicklime to its walls, and directly I had you

out of the way I proceeded to wash the painted walls

with a mixture of lime which had been used to treat

the soil in this garden. I noticed that as the

duration of the fire-festival period advanced the

manifestations of heat became more and more

apparent, and, on the first evening of your absence,

the temperature of the room grew so unbearable that

I was forced to abandon my work.

" All the next morning I applied myself to the

task, but the walls became so intensely hot that no

sooner did I place the brush upon them than the lime dried up and fell off in flakes. I t must have been

about a quarter of an hour before you came that I found the temperature growing so intolerable as to

THE MAGIC HOUSE 125

make a further stay in the room impossible. I remember staggering to the door, but as I reached

it a spurt of flame flashed from the wall opposite me and barred my passage. A volume of noxious gas

seemed to envelope me, and I immediately lost

consciousness. Why I should have been burnt and

the fabric of the room left undamaged is, I think,

explained by the magical character of the fire; and

we must remember that as I had defiled the shrine

of the goddess the malign influence by which the

room was permeated was probably determined to

destroy me."

"But all this does not explain why the fire ceased

so suddenly when I entered the room," I said. " I don't understand. . . . 97

" That does not perplex me much," replied Rask.

"All students of the occult know that a manifestation

which may persist in the presence of one person

usually ceases if another enters the scope of its

activity. For instance, you did not witness the glow shine from the walls that night until I had left the

room. Probably the reason that the phenomenon did

not become visible before it did was that we were almost constantly together in the room. , ,

CHAPTER VI

IN RED TURKESTAN

AFTER that startling experience, and Rask's recovery,

we had no wish to stay any longer in that locality so

travelled to Kushk on the western borders of Afghan-

istan. This is a Russian military post, situated near

the Afghan frontier, and from this point a railway

runs to Merv. At Kushk I encountered a number

of Bolshevist officers, who seemed closely in touch

with Russia by telegraph and wireless. At Herat,

as I passed through, I had furnished myself with a

new supply of rugs and carpets, and I did a fair

business at Kushk.

When, therefore, I took the Murghab Railway to Merv I was once more dressed as a mullah; for

I knew that in such a character 1 should be well

received among the Turkomans.

Although the distance is only about two hundred

miles, the train occupied nearly a day and a half to do the distance. W e also had a most disconcerting

experience at a place called Panjdeh, which is really I 26

I N RED TURKESTAN 127

an oasis in the desert stretching between Kushk and

M erv.

From Merv my Norwegian friend went to

Krasnovodsk, and, I hope, reached home safely.

But I had to get another man as my companion, and

this I managed to do.

I do not know whether the Bolshevist authorities

had telegraphed from Kushk, asking their colleagues

at Panjdeh to examine us, but, at any rate, when the

train stopped at that station for an hour, as Russian

trains have a way of doing, we were told bluntly to

come and explain ourselves to the officer on duty.

This personage, who was seated in a large, roomy

cabin near the railway, took no notice of us when

we entered. Then, suddenly, he raised his head

and gruffly ordered us to show our passports. I informed him that we had already had them examined

at Kushk, where the authorities had given us to

understand that they were perfectly satisfied, but,

since I did not wish to make trouble, I produced the papers, and he looked at them closely.

"You are dressed as a mullah," he said at length,

" but here you are described as a merchant. What is the meaning of this? "

" That is easily explained," I replied, " for I am both mullah and merchant."


" A strange combination," he sneered. " Priest and peddler, e h ? What is your purpose in travelling in Russian Turkestan ? "

" My purpose," I replied, " is to sell my wares

and to preach the truth."

"And how," said he, looking at me sidelong,

out of his small, watery, blue eyes, "how am I to

know, most holy mullah, that you are not a spy or

an enemy of the Russian Republic? Come, tell

US that."

" I meddle not with such things at all," I assured 66 him. I am a man of peace, of religion. 9,

" H'm ! " he said. " I have met mullahs of your

kind. Turkestan is full of them. Many of them

have turned Bolshevist and are now preaching the

doctrines of our President. Perhaps you desire to

do the same."

I t occurred to me like a flash that, by ret tending to accede to his request, I could gain an unrivalled

opportunity of examining the workings of the Bol-

shevist system in Turkestan, and also reach the

Shrines of Bokhara. So, assuming a look of

cunning, I replied, " I should have no objections

to your proposal provided your government were as

generous to me as I have heard it has been to some other mullahs."

I N R E D T U R K E S T A N I 29

H e laughed. " I thought as much," he said.

" Now look here, my very religious friend, I will

give you a letter of introduction to someone in Merv

who will be able to put you in touch with the proper

authorities."

Then, calling in a military clerk, he dictated a

brief note. This he handed to me along with my

papers, remarking that we had better board the train

at once since it was about to start.

Late in the afternoon of the next day the train

steamed into Merv, that most malarial oasis, which,

with its clusters of open shops and its dusty trees,

uncovered drains and sweltering heat, is strangely

reminiscent of India, but lacks the counterbalancing comforts of that land.

Since it was a Monday and so a market-day the streets were thronged with two-wheeled Persian

carts, baggage-horses and an occasional motor-car

filled with Russian officials. Here were fruits from Samarkand, silk, velvet and sweetmeats from Bok- hara, carpets from Herat and samovars from Russia.

Passing through the bazaar I made my way alone to

the address the Russian official at Panjdeh had given

me. I t was that of a Russian commercial house. I found there the person to whom my note of intro-

duction had been written, a man of typically Slavonic I


appearance. After perusing the letter he put me through a rapid catechism with reference to my

political beliefs. I took care to answer him in a satisfactory manner, and he seemed pleased with my replies.

" How would you like," he asked, " to go to Khiva? "

" What ! " I cried. " T o Khiva ! Across the Desert of Kara-kum ? "

I< Just so," he said, still smiling. " YOU and

your friends, I am told, sold your ponies at Kushk.

Well, we will give you camels. Your business will be to travel from point to point and hold meetings

among the Turkomans of the desert, describing the blessings of our rule, and assuring them that Bolshevism differs in no way from the Moslim faith, but is the modern interpretation of it. You understand me ? "

I understood him perfectly. Of course I at once made up my mind that I would not do as he proposed, but would take care to tell the Turkomans that the " blessings " of Bolshevism had nothing in common with the faith of my fathers.

T h e next day my companions and I were fitte'd out from the government stores, received our credentials, and, mounting our camels, rode out

I N R E D T U R K E S T A N

of the military quarter, and through the monotonous

suburbs, into the desert beyond.

The heat was terrific, and even our animals seemed to feel it. This desert is not, however, a

desolate expanse of sand, but is covered by small

bushes and shrubs, and frequently rises into hillocks.

The Russians say that the desert is gradually

disappearing before the shrub known as saksaul, the

long, penetrating roots of which dig their way deep

down into the sand and bind it together into soil.

Special nurseries have been established at many

stations for the cultivation of this shrub, so that now

there are no shifting sands. The dull shade of the

saksaul gives the landscape an extraordinary appear-

ance, not unlike that of a heathery moor in the

distance.

We made fair progress and passed many Kirghiz

who were evidently making for Merv. These people are normally Mahommedans but still retain traces of

their old shamanistic religion. Of all Asiatic peoples they are, I should say, the greediest for news and

politically the most argumentative. They plied me with questions regarding the tenets of Bolshevism,

and I replied as tactfully as I could, for I was not

yet far enough from Merv to carry out, with any-

thing like safety, the plan I had formulated. At

WESTWARD TO MECCA

night we stopped at a small oasis where there was a

camp of Kirghiz.

W e were the guests of the headman, who received

us hospitably. W e had a good supper of Pilau, and tea which the Kirghiz carry about with them in small

blocks, and use as money. A tribal singer sang, in a whining, monotonous voice, a long ballad about

a giant called Manas, whose adventures are scarcely fit for polite ears.

T h e headman questioned me closely regarding my business in Kara-kum, throwing covetous glances

the while at the bundles of rugs I had brought with me. I presented him with one of them and he immediately asked for another, but, since I could spare no more, I courteously refused. At this he seemed much annoyed, and, turning to my

companion, Shah Baz, asked him for a present. But he had absolutely nothing except the clothes he stood up in. When he explained this fact to the headman he was answered by a snort of contempt.

I n about half an hour we lay down with our heads on our saddle-bags to snatch a few hours' rest. But feeling that we were not' altogether safe I kept my revolver handy, and gradually I fell off to sleep.

When I woke it was broad daylight, and I was

I N RED T U R K E S T A N I 3 3

rather surprised to find my head reclining on the sand. I sat up and looked around. There was my companion, but there was no sign of the Kirghiz nor

of their camp. Worse still, there was neither hide

nor hair of our camels, and every scrap of our

baggage had been carried off. I roused my companion, and my serving-man

began loudly to lament his position, cursing the day

he had left his home. Here we were in the middle

of the Desert of Kara-kum. There was plenty

of water at the oasis, but, since we had nothing

to carry it in we could not move a step backward or

forward.

Su'ddenly I realized precisely why the Bolsheviks

had sent us into the desert. Convinced that we were spies, and apprehensive that, if they shot us, they

might have to account to someone or other, they had

beguiled us into these wastes to perish miserably of

hunger.

Fool that I was, how easily I had been deceived!

The Bolsheviks had played with me as a cat plays

with a mouse. In rage and despair I resolved to extricate myself and my companions from our awful

situation, and to repay the Bolsheviks for their treachery.

We had our revolvers, but of food-not a bite.

WESTWARD TO MECCA

I knew that, if we went far enough eastward we

should certainly strike the Trans-Caspian Railway,

but we resolved unanimously to keep on our way to

Khiva. Yet how could we reach it without food or

water none of us could pretend to say; so we sat

'down and held a council of war. Khiva, we knew, was almost three hundred miles northward of us;

Merv about twenty miles southward. It would be impossible to reach Merv even without an adequate

supply of water. T h e morning dragged on, and, when the hot hours came, we clustered in the scanty shade of the little oasis and drank from its one well, in order to allay not only the burning thirst we suffered but the pangs of hunger. The torrid afternoon passed terribly, but at last evening came and brought some slight relief, though our hunger by this time was extreme.

Suddenly my servant uttered a loud cry and pointed to the south. At first I could see nothing. Then I made out a string of horsemen and camels slowly rising out of the evening haze and making for the spot on which we stood, which was, indeed, their only possible camping-place for the night.

They drew nearer, and we were able to see that they were a party of merchants, evidently from Herat; men of various Eastern nationalities, Hindus,

I N RED T U R K E S T A N I35

Persians, Afghans, in the charge of a group of

Kirghiz who were acting as their guides.

I t then transpired that they were going to

Khiva, where they hoped to sell carpets and other merchandise at enhanced prices. I had met more

than one of these men during my short stay in

Afghanistan, and, since several of them were quite

aware of my identity and connections, they agreed

to advance me a sufficient sum to enable me to

proceed on my journey.

For the next ten days we jogged slowly over the

everlasting scrub until we arrived at Khan Kui,

where two caravan-routes meet. At this place there

was a large, vacant, cheerless serai, which smelt

abominably of camels.

The Kirghiz availed themselves of the chance

afforded by the halt to begin a debauch on hashish. They grouped themselves round the walls and puffed

slowly at their long pipes. They swayed from side

to side, each singing a line of a dismal ballad. I t was impossible to escape the wailing noise of the singers or the insistent chattering of the merchants,

who lied to each other with the consummate art one

finds in the American bag-man. This was merely amusing, but when some of the Kirghiz, remember-

ing my character as a mullah, broke into sneers


regarding Mussulmans-for, as I have said, they are

very bad Mahommedans-it was rather more than I could tolerate.

" Silence, you unbelieving dogs ! " I cried. " Is it not enough that you intoxicate yourselves like

beasts, and now must add blasphemy to your folly? " Some of the graver merchants added their

protestations to mine, and within a few minutes

I was the centre of a fierce altercation. Sticks, whips and other weapons were seized, and a right

royal fight ensued. When the m&lte was at an end I felt sufficiently exhausted to lie down thankfully on a handful of ill-smelling straw, and, pillowing my head on a camel-bag, I fell asleep almost at once.

When I awoke the Kirghiz had all disappearea

I heard stealthy sounds outside, however, and going into the open I saw them in the very act of departure. Drawing my revolver, I called upon them to halt. As none of them were armed with modern fire-arms they wavered and asked me what I wanted. A long and tiresome argument ensued, in which I was blamed as the initiator of all the mischief. At first

the Kirghiz swore they would not escort the party another yard if my friends and I were to accompany it, but at last they consented not to leave us behind.

Three days later we arrived at Khiva. But I

I N RED TURKESTAN I 3 7

was full of misgiving, for I was well aware that the Bolsheviks were supreme in the place, and that it would go hard with me and my companion if they learned our identity. Indeed, I fully believe that had I known what we were fated to go through in

Khiva I should have preferred to turn my horse's head and face once more the perils of the Desert of Kara-kum.

CHAPTER VII

THROUGH KHIVA, BOKHARA AND SAMARKAND

AS the party of merchants, and Kirghiz guides to which my companion and I had attached ourselves,

approached the gates of Khiva I was by no means

reassured to see the Bolshevist uniform of the officials

stationed there. They a t once demanded our pass-

ports. I had only the papers I had received from

the Bolshevist authorities at Merv. But I was some-

what comforted by the recollection that there is no

telegraphic communication between Merv and Khiva.

So, taking my courage in both hands, I the yellow slips of paper that described our party,

and handed them to the sergeant-major, whose portly

presence occupied most of the narrow gateway. To

my intense relief he merely glanced at them and hanaed them back to me with a curt nod.

T w o of the merchants, who had agreed to finance me temporarily, now suggested that my friend Shah Baz and I should put up at the same serai as them-

selves. T o this I gladly agreed. When we had

refreshe'd ourselves, and rested a little, Shah Baz 138

KHIVA, BOKHARA, SAMARKAND 139

informed me that he intended to leave for Bokhara

on the following day, since that was, after all, his

objective. So I parted from him with regret.

Then, leaving my servant Rahmat Khan in the

serai, I sallied forth with another friend, Salim

Husain, to see Khiva. W e walked through some

of the principal streets and entered the bazaar. I was now in funds, for one of my merchant friends

had provided me with an adequate, if not liberal,

supply of cash. Since I was in need of a pair of

shoes we made our way toward the booths of the

shoemakers. After an inordinate amount of bargain-

ing I got what I required. But while my friend also

was pricing shoes I heaid a heavy step behind me

and saw an Uzbeg in the uniform of the Bolshevist

police pass the door of the booth. H e fixed his

small, beady eyes suspiciously upon us, and for a

moment he almost halted, but at length he passed on, and we, having paid the shoemaker, made our

way back to the serai.

After dinner, while we were smoking with the

two merchants whose guests we were, I was horrified to see the Uzbeg policeman enter the room. I felt

instinctively that trouble was brewing, but I kept my seat and pretended not to notice him. H e was not,

however, to be ignored in this fashion, and with a

140 W E S T W A R D T O MECCA

great deal of official pomposity he came forward and

demanded that I should accompany him at once to

police headquarters. T h e merchants were about to interfere, but, since I had no desire to drag them

into the affair, I at once rose, and, followed by Salim

Husain, accompanied the man into the street, where

my servant was already awaiting me.

I felt convinced that the end had come, but 1 resolved to make one bid fo'r liberty. As we were

going down a narrow lane, which at the moment was almost empty, I touched the policeman on the arm and said to him, " My friend, what does this mean ? "

" You will find that out quickly enough," he

replied gruffly, and closing one eye, he made an unpleasant clicking sound, suggestive of shooting.

" Look here," I cried, " don't be a fool. You

know perfectly well that these Russians are merely playing with us. Using us as tools for their own

political ends."

" I know I am paid by them," he said with a

laugh, " and that is all I need to know."

Suppose I were to pay you better?" I suggested, playing my last card.

He shook his head. " It's far too risky. I daren't do it ."


" Listen to me," I said sternly. " You are a Mussulman like myself. Are you going to betray a

man of your own faith? I will give you half the

money I have if you will report that you cannot find

me, and I assure you that I will leave the town at once. "

His eyes sparkled. " Out with your money, then. "

Now I was not a little surprised at this, for as a rule the Uzbeg is by no means a covetous man. "Do

you accept my offer, then? " I asked. " I do, if you promise to leave the town at once." I opened my wallet and counted out half the notes

it contained. H e seized the little bundle with a grunt of satisfaction and at once made off down the lane as quickly as he could.

We then lost no time in hurrying back to the serai and acquainting our merchant friends with what

hid taken place. In the very kindest way they at once placed three animals at our disposal, and told us that we should take the road along the Oxus to Krasnovodsk on the Caspian. I t would then be possible for us to make our way from there into Persia, and thence into Afghanistan. They assured us that such a proceeding would be much safer than pushing on to any other point.


So, once more showing our passports at the gate, with the guard of which the police authorities had

evidently not thought it necessary to communicate,

we were soon trotting rapidly in a south-easterly direction.

After riding for about three days through Khivan territory, we came once more to the desert and passed

the wonderful ruins of old Tatar cities.

By and by we found the country more fertile, but we were not a t all reassured by the occasional

glimpses we had of raiding parties of Kirghiz. The Kirghiz are descendants of Tatar tribes and rather

resemble the Uzbegs. They exist to a great extent on horse-flesh and mare's milk. Many of their tribal customs are, indeed, connected with horses, which they breed in herds.

T h e horses the merchants had so kindly given us were rather indifferent animals-gift horses which we

were not a t liberty to look in the mouth. They greatly amused the Kirghiz, who, to a man, are

ardent connoisseurs of horse-flesh. I had reason to

know, however, that the beast I rode belied its looks and had a good deal of speed. So, one day, when I was being mildly chaffed by a Kirghiz chieftain regarding the sorry appearance of my mount, I offered to wager him my horse against his that


I would outdistance him in a race of about a mile.

" That would scarcely be a good arrangement,"

he said in the shrewd manner of his people, "because,

if your horse beat mine, I should want to have him

and not be able to procure him, whereas if mine

came in first and you lost yours, I should in common

hospitality have to give him back to you rather than

allow you to make the journey to Krasnovodsk on

foot. Also, if your horse were to come off the

winner, the reputation of my stud would suffer so

greatly that I should find it hard to dispose of any of them."

" That is scarcely a sportsman's view of the affair,"

I retorted, " but I will take the risk, and if you win,

I will undertake to forfeit my horse and not ask you for another."

" Fools cannot be cured," he said, shrugging his

shoulders upon the well-known Uzbeg proverb.

"You must have your own way." And he had our horses brought.

Beside his well-groomed steed, with its arched

neck and fine fetlocks, mine looked a sorry

hack, indeed. But we jumpe'd into our saddles, an Uzbeg fired his rifle into the air, and we were off.

W E S T W A R D . TO MECCA

W e had agreed to race to a stunted tree about half a mile away, which formed one of the few land-

marks on the broad steppe, to go around this and

return to the starting-point. At first I could not get more than a trot out of my animal, which seemed in a terribly obstinate mood, but I remembered I had seen

English jockeys sit as far forward upon the withers

of the animal as possible; almost on its neck. From the moment I tried the stratagem it proved successful.

I forged ahead and slowly began to overtake the

chieftain, who, in the usual Tatar fashion during a race, was guiding his horse with his feet, and waving

his arms. H e rode like a centaur, but I felt that

my seat in the saddle was by far the more scientific one, and when I passed him at the stunted tree he uttered a loud exclamation of surprise. After that he

had never a chance. W e were going at such a pace

that I feared my old " Rosinante's " wind would not hold out; but we came in an easy first and not in the

least exhausted. Then the chieftain arrived looking crestfallen A

number of his people had collected, and he was dis- tinctly annoyed. H e called me aside, and, for a

moment said nothing, biting his lip, and looking at

me out of his little slanting eyes.

" I must have your horse," he said at last- " I


cannot afford to let it go. ,What price do you want

for i t ? "

Now I did not want him to feel that I had inten-

tionally humiliated him; for the Kirghiz are insanely

proud.

" I will be quite content," I said, " to exchange him for a horse fit to carry me to Krasnovodsk. T h e

horse you were riding just now will, in fact, suit me

admirably."

" First of all," he said, "will you answer me as

man to man? Have you used any magic on that

horse ? " At this I laughed aloud. " You laugh," said the chieftain irritably, " but

you were afraid to sit upon its back and actually bestrode its neck ! "

I then explained to him the English and American system of 'riding in horse-races, but could scarcely

disabuse him of the idea that there was magic in what

I had done. So the exchange was made.

Without further adventure we arrived at Charju, from where trains go to their western terminus at

Krasnovodsk. I t is a bustling railway junction in Turkomania, and is in fact the terminus, or, more

correctly, the commencement of the Trans-Caspian Railway.

K

W E S T W A R D TO MEC'CA

I t occurred to me that, were I able to sell our horses

at anything like a fair price, we might manage to

bring our little party in safety to our destination.

I went to the station to ask the fare, and I was at

once requested by a Bolshevist official to show my passport. Now I speak Persian fluently and have so

Persian an appearance that I have acted as an inter-

preter to many Oriental Royalties. So at the railway

station in Charju I felt sure of my ability to evade

the unnecessary red tape. Accordingly, when he

demanded my visa, I shook my head as if I did not

understand him, and replied that I had just come from Persia.

Of course I knew that the Russians were doing

their best to make a good impression on the Persians,

and when he heard my story he smiled, and held

out a huge paw for me to shake. Accepting the

proffered hand I entered into conversation with him, and in a few minutes we had become friendly. I found him, politics apart, a decent fellow. He invited me into his little room for a cup of tea. I

told him that I was bound for Bokhara to take up a

position with an uncle there who was a well-known

importer of carpets, but that I had been robbed in the streets that morning and had now nothing left

except my horses with which to pay my own way and


my friend's to Bokhara. H e offered to try to have

the horses sold for me, and I told him that, if I could

get them disposed of at once, I would accept a lower

figure than their real value.

According to arrangement, therefore, Salim

Husain, my serving-man, and I brought the horses round to the station at eight o'clock. Our Bolshevist

friend was waiting for us.

" Look here," he said, " I'll tell you what I can

do. Give me those four horses and I will procure

you three railway passes to Bokhara."

I t was a fool's bargain, but there was nothing else for it. But I would not give up the horses until the official brought back both passes and passports, so he went off to get them.

H e returned with the railway passes, looking exceedingly glum. " It's a pity you didn't tell me

the truth about yourself," he said. " The police are not pleased with you, and the sooner you make yourself scarce the better. You cannot travel by

train without passports. I advise you to make a bolt for it at once."

" Well, you shan't be the loser," I said, and, slipping my hand into my bosom, I pulled out a ruby ring-an heirloom-which I kept as a last resource, and always wore suspended from a piece of silk.


T o my intense surprise, however, he refused the

proffered gift. (6 No, no," he said, waving it away, " I couldn't

think of it. You see I am a real Communist. Now don't let the grass grow under your feet. I will say you slipped off while I was at the passport office.

Go on your horses, I do not want them."

There is nothing to recount regarding our long

ride Bokharaward, for we took care to give larger

villages along the railway line a particularly wide

berth. In fact we did not see a single Bolshevist

official during the whole journey, which occupied the

best part of a fortnight.

At intervals we came to a riverside mosque with small dome and tiny minaret, and at these places we

were invariably received with kindness; for there is

freemasonry among Moslims. At last we reached Yakotut. There, after giving

our horses a couple of days to recruit, we readily

disposed of them at a fair price. W e were equally

fortunate in the matter of passports. I became

acquainted with a friendly mullah who knew Shah Baz and could assure me of his safe arrival in Bokhara. I t happened that this mullah was intimate

with an Uzbeg official of high standing in the

Bolshevist service, and induced him to procure us


passports in our own names. Thus equipped we had

nothing to fear, and making a slow ride of it for

Bokhara we arrived there in a day and a half.

But here we were immediately subjected to a

searching examination by an official of the Bokharian

Soviet. H e was a decidedly difficult person to 'deal

with, and I saw at once that he was suspicious of us ;

chiefly, I think, because I had tried to purchase a

pair of boots. I succeeded, however, in dissipating

his distrust, and we took up our quarters in the new

caravanserai, which is only about two hundred yards

from the Amir's palace.

After a week's stay in Bokhara we set out, in

company with my old friend Shah Baz, for the ancient city of Samarkand.

I had by this time communicated with my friends in Kabul, and had requested them to send

to Bokhara sufficient funds to allow me to complete

my journey.

When at last we reached the city I could hardly

believe my eyes. Under the rule of the Soviet it

had become a centre not only for coal-mining but also for the manufacture of small arms and machine-

guns. The people in the streets looked dejected. They were, I learned, little less than slaves, and

r c r e forced to go down the coal mines. If they


objected to doing that they were forced into the army.

I knew that Bokhara was the home of one of the branches of the " Oriental Institute," at which

the natives of Central Asia are trained to preach the Bolshevist doctrine to their compatriots, and I

resolved that, if it were at all possible, I would investigate this precious institution, and whilst visit-

ing the Shrines there. Shah Baz tried to dissuade me, but my curiosity was aroused and it is well-nigh impossible to lull it to sleep.

One morning, therefore, when I knew that Shah Baz had gone to the baths, I called at the Institute and inquired for the director. I was received politely enough, and after the usual formalities was asked my business. I replied that I wished some work in translating languages, of which I had a

sound and wide experience. The director, who was a Hindu, told me that they had eight hundred students on the roll, but were very short of teachers, and especially of translators with a knowledge of

Hindustani and Persian who could render newspaper paragraphs into Turki. H e asked to see my pass-

ports with which he professed himself quite satisfied, and offered to put me in charge of a newspaper translation dep6t ; a proposal which I immediately accepted.

s KHIVA, BOKHARA, SAMARKAND 1 5 1

I, therefore, presented myself at the Institute on

the following morning and was immediately con-

ducted by the director to that part of it in which the

press bureau was situated.

I found my colleagues to be a most amusing

parcel of nondescripts. One was an Uzbeg with a

smattering of Russian, rather less Persian, and a few

phrases of restaurant French of which he was

ridiculously proud. H e told me he had learned the

last from the baggageman of a derelict theatrical

company at Orenburg. He was for ever trotting out

such phrases as " C'est boa! " " Mal de t&Ee " (Apropos of his hashish smoking) and other tag-ends

of the school-room. Another man, of mixed Russian and Turki origin, was an anarchist and free-thinker

of the virulent type, with about as much intelligence

as a rabbit. H e occasionally indulged in prolonged

flights of turgid rhetoric, and his conversation was

modelled on that of the heroes of Maxim Gorky.

There was also a quiet little Persian journalist who

had been " drafted" from Azerbaijan, where he had

worked on a local paper, and who seemed to be a fish out of water.

This man would come and sit beside my desk and look fixedly at me in the most disconcerting way.

I felt sure he was very ill, and I said so.


" I am dying," he said. " I have been an invalid for years, and this place is finishing me."

H e seemed to me to be suffering from Bright's disease, and, in a moment of forgetfulness, I wrote him a prescription, in the hope that he

might get it made up at one of the local Russian dispensaries.

T h e next day the director came bustling over to me with the prescription in his hand. " You wrote this, I understand."

I admitted that I had done so.

" Now listen, my friend," he rapped out, ' 1 scarcely know what to make of you. I have information that you are a mullah travelling with

another mullah, who is well-known in Bokhara.

Yet you seem to have a good deal of journalistic knowledge, and now you write a prescription which

shows that you have studied medicine. What does all this mean ? "

66 I t means nothing more than that I have studied medicine," I said.

H e shook his head. " You seem to have studied far too many things," he said, looking at me with

great earnestness. Then he turned away abruptly and left me feeling very uneasy.

I quickly found that the bureau was one of the


most efficient falsehood factories in any of the five

continents. The wildest yarns arrived regarding the

condition of affairs in Great Britain. T h e coal

strike, we were told, had ~recipitated a wide-spread

revolution. T h e trade-unions had formed a govern-

ment, and Mr. H. G. Wells had been nominated the

first president of the British Soviet, with Mr.

Ramsay Macdonald as minister for foreign affairs.

Irish torpedo-boats had blown up the entrance to

Liverpool docks, and Mr. Lloyd George had fled to

France. The majority of my colleagues implicitly

believed in these reports, and looked sourly at me

for laughing a t them.

But my Bolshevist press experience came to a

sudden conclusion. One day I found on my desk a

cutting from an English paper, the name of which

it would be unkind to mention, containing an attack

upon the Indian policy of the government. As I was perusing it the director stole up behind me and

said suddenly, in English, " That's good stuff for us, isn't it ? "

" Good stuff ! " I replied, in the same language,

quite off my guard. " If some of those fellows only 9 , knew-

" Oh, then, you know English," said the Hindu,

looking at me queerly. " You have still another

WESTWARD TO MECCA

accomplishment. Did you learn that also in England, may I ask? "

" Of course I did," I replied warmly. "What is the matter with you? When are your absurd

suspicions to cease ? " " My friend,'' he said, regarding me closely, " I

never have suspicions, only intuitions," and without

another word he hurried off. A moment later I heard him running quickly down the stairs.

A few minutes after this incident my little Persian

friend came over to me. " If you will take my I t advice," he said, you will go, now. I hear that

the director has communicated with the police."

Shaking him hastily by the hand, I dashed down the rickety staircase in the rear of the building,

hurried to a garage, and, after a good deal of wrangling, hired a fast motor-car for one day, to take me to Tash Kupri.

In ten minutes we were bowling 'down the eastern road. W e arrived at our destination in about three

and a half hours, dismissed the car, and at once

began making preparations for the journey to Kershi, from where I intended to go to Bokhara again.

After about a week at Kershi, a ~ l a n grew in my mind that I should change my name, retum to Bokhara by railway and proceeg to Tashkent, from


whence I could take the Orenburg-Tashkent Railway

to the latter town, the great centre of Bolshevist

propaganda. But I did not foresee that this last

mentioned railway would be closed to me; closed in

such a manner that I might not be permitted to have

a good look at Tashkent.

I procured the kind of passport I wanted, an easy

enough matter at Kershi, trimmed my beard and

moustache and got into the train, feeling altogether

a different person.

I t took an unconscionable time to reach Bokhara;

three entire days. W e stopped at every wayside station, and, as we approached the city, were held

up nearly every twenty minutes by a series of

engines, each of which seemed to draw scores of

coal-trucks. These were, of course, all going north-

ward from the coal-mines and would be switched off

at a point on the line that joins the Orenburg-

Tashkent Railway, en route for Moscow.

I t was early morning when we steamed into

Bokhara at last. Alighting from the train, I showed

my passport, which was scarcely looked at. There was not so much opportunity for adventure beyond

the propaganda ccntre, in Bokhara as in other parts

of Turkestan, for although the Amir of Bokhara hid been dethroned, expatriated, and was living in exile


in Afghanistan, the local Soviet government was by

no means in good odour with the Uzbeg population,

and had to behave warily.

T h e life of the city centres in the square, about which are clustered imposing mosques and religious

colleges. But the scene of liveliest activity is the

shore of a small artificial lake, surrounded with trees,

in the midst of which stand barber-shops, tea-houses and refreshment-booths. The barbers' booths draw

many to the spot, for the Uzbeg is a very strict

Mahommedan and has his head shaved almost daily,

although he wears a long, flowing beard. Barbers in the East are generally surgeons as well, and those

of Bokhara are uncommonly skilled in removing the 'dreaded rishta, a worm that brekds in the

drinking water and lays its eggs in the human body.

Much of the trade here is done by barter. This

arises from the fact that the currency is now

practically all paper, and that the people have grown SO distrustful of its constant fluctuations in value that they prefer other means of exchange. When, therefore, on a shopping expedition, they carry with

them considerable quantities of rice and block tea-- at one time regarded as currency throughout the length and breadth of Turkestan-and give these


in exchange for anything they have occasion to purchase. I t is a comical sight to see a grave and

reticent Uzbeg, who has just had his head shaved,

pour a quantity of rice into the barber's cupped

hands, or a housewife, heavily veiled, proffering

three large squares of compressed tea in exchange

for a small earthenware dish. T h e people are all on ration tickets.

Another of the sights of Bokhara is the ram-

fighting that seems to go on from morning to night

in the open square. As soon as one batch of ram- fighters retires, another takes its place. T h e yet

more numerous cock-fighting fraternity is equally

diligent. But the joyous parties of these devotees of sport are only too frequently broken up by the

appearance of a Bolshevist officer representing the

local Ispolkom, who asks the pleasure-seekers to

show their employment cards. Woe to the unfortun-

ate who fails to exhibit a card. H e is immediately

taken to the chief of police, and work is allotted to

him. H e is usually sent to the oil-fields of Ferghana.

During my stay in Bokhara I attended a session of the Soviet. I t consists of twenty-seven members,

elected by themselves, and not by the Uzbeg ~ e o p l e .

I t meets in the old fort of the exiled Amir of Bokhara. On the occasion on which I was present they were

WESTWARD TO MECCA

debating on the subject of the province of Ferghana.

From personalities some of the members passed to

open hostility and blows. One delegate drew a

knife and flourished it within an inch of the throat

of another member. In a moment a panic ensued,

and the spectators crowded to the door. I managed

to get clear with a few bruises. I heard later that the delegate who behaved so " unconstitutionally "

had been seriously wounded in the scuffle.

I was shortly afterwards informed that, since

no one may exist in the Republic without some

ostensible means of livelihood, I must find one or

have it found for me. The Propaganda School

fortunately for me was removed to Tashkent by then.

Knowing quite well that I was in danger of slavery

of the most degrading kind, I made up my mind to seek employment there.

In that city, accordingly, I soon began to teach

foreign languages, but was told by the authorities

that such employment could not on any account be 66 regarded as work," and that an attempt to gain

money by it was the act of a speculator. Food was

so scarce in Rokhara, too, that one day 1 accepted with pleasure the invitation of a local worthy, named

Mahommed Reg, to dine with him at his private

residence. He had made great despite


the ration rules, but, just as the meal was about to

be served, a Bolshevist officer, accompanied by three

armed soldiers, appeared and announced that he (6 must requisition " Mahommed Beg's carpets and

rugs, for they were required to decorate the hall

where a friendly foreign Mission was about to be

entertained. I n vain my host protested. The

officer marched off with the carpets which my friend

was destined never to see again.

Though I already knew full well that Bokharian

Bolshevism is of the Moscow brand I determined to

obtain work in some official capacity, in order that

I might have a still better chance later of getting out

of the country.

When, therefore, I applied at the Labour Bureau,

and informed the chief that I was well versed in

languages, he offered to accept my services at what

seemed an enormous salary but which actually was

equivalent to only a few shillings per diem. On the

following day I was installed at the Application

Office, which scarcely deserved its name; for those

who " applied " there were forced to do so by the

Ispolkoms, and certainly did not repair to its gloomy

corridors because they were wildly anxious to obtain

employment in the coal-mines of Samarkand, or the

cotton or oil-fields of Ferghana.

WESTWARD TO MECCA

T h e majority of the applicants were either very Poor or fairly well-to-do. In the first instance we dealt with them shortly. If they seemed strong enough they were assigned to the coal-mines or the oil-fields, and hustled off by soldiers. The well-off

were, it is true, permitted to purchase better treat-

ment, but they were not paid for the intensely hard minual labour they were forced to do, and they were wretchedly underfed.

I t seemed to me that nearly everyone in Bokhara

was living on melons. There had been a very large crop, and, since it was impossible to export it, it was

being used for home consumption. I remained at the Labour Bureau for some weeks,

and can honestly affirm that during that period I was always fiercely hungry. I grew to detest the melons and the wretched black bread. The work, too, was

tiresome to a degree. I t consisted chiefly in

assigning the Uzbegs to various mines, and filling in countless forms of extraordinary length and complexity.

One day, when I was telling a poor Uzbeg how to treat an ulcerated condition of his leg, a ~ o l s h e v ~ ~ ~ official, overhearing me, remarked that I must have studied medicine. Incautiously I replied that I had,

and the same evening I was asked to step into the


office of the manager of the bureau, where I found the local chief of police. T h e two men put me

through a tremendous cross-examination, and asked

me the last place from which I had come. I told

them, and then, for a cause I could never fully

ascertain-for beyond my innocent desire to travel

in the world of Islam on my way to Mecca there had

been no other motive-I was made, on the instant,

to board the train for Tashkent, and ultimately for

Orenburg, where I would have lingered like others,

or perhaps starved, had I not escaped to the Arab

Sea. But it, nonetheless, was an education to me,

and there I learnt the extent of the Bolshevik war

preparations. Now, propaganda, backed by actual

fighting force, is a very real menace to Europe and

Asia alike.

In spite of repeated warnings the extent of

Bolshevik threat to the British Empire is not fully

realized in this country. Many are no doubt aware

of the Soviet endeavour to undermine English prestige in Asia through anti-British propaganda, but few comprehend the magnitude of military

preparedness with which Red Russia is backing her efforts.

Let it, therefore, be said at once that the Soviet

Government to-day possesses perhaps one of the L


finest armies, and certainly infinitely larger than any

retained by even the most advanced European

Power. T h e surprising fact is that this advancement has been achieved out of chaos and disruption;

for the Bolsheviks began their day with practically

no army as such.

I n 1917, when the late Czar's troops fell to pieces, Russia had over a million soldiers, but there

was neither discipline nor food. In less than a year

matters were put right, and military progress has been maintained, internal and external difficulties notwithstanding.

With the enormous population, approaching some

I40,oo0,000 souls, the Bolsheviks were never

troubled for man-power. The present figures of the Red army reach 730,000, which is composed of 28 Cavalry divisions, and 12 divisions of Infantry; each division consisting of 18,500 men. The trans-

port which is attached to the infantry units far exceeds its former figure in so far as it is now 3,500 wagons and 9,000 Arabs.

A few years ago, when disruption arose in the ranks of the Bolshevik political leaders, a new force

was brought into being with the duty of only the political groups of Soviet Russia. I t has

now ten regiments; one is stationed at ~eningra'd*


two at Moscow, and the rest are distributed in the

Ukraine, Turkestan, Volga, and other provinces.

Every person between the ages of 18 and 38 is liable to compulsory military service, and boys are

trained at the age of 16 for two years, so that they

may be able to put in a three years' service with the

Colours. But the greatest strength lies in the fact

that a batch of no less than 600 officers is perman-

ently retained at the Moscow Army Headquarters;

so that, within a month, the existing army could be

expanded to four times its size with the least

difficulty. Meanwhile, these reserve officers are

engaged in military research.

Some two or three years ago Soviet Russia was

the biggest buyer of military stores, but she is now

practically independent of all foreign manufacture.

Russia can boast to-day of no less than a dozen rifle

manufactories, only three of which are State con-

trolled. At Leningrad and Puttiloff guns are being turned out in considerable quantities, and in quality

they compare favourably with those of European

make. Tanks and aeroplanes are being perfected with amazing rapidity, and Russia unquestionably

owns at the present moment the largest number of

aeroplanes for military purposes. But perhaps the

most interesting side of this increase of Russia's


army is the evolution of a women's corps, and 1 have

reason to believe that in certain respects these peasant girl-soldiers were able to acquit themselves

very much more favourably than even the stalwart

sons of the Caucasus, certainly with the machine-

guns and dispatch riding.

Out of the 730,000 of the standing army two-

thirds are to be considered as first line men, trained

and hardened soldiers, with three or more years'

training, while the rest are younger men. But by

far the most significant element consists in those

officers who are devoting their full attention to perfecting the industrial and military r~obilization

for war purposes.

Every now and then a war craze is started in

MOSCOW, to test the efficiency of mobilization of the

Red Russian Army, which, as Lenin said, " is the

torch bearer of freedom and liberty for the unfor- tunate peoples of Asia."

C H A P T E R V I I I

ESCAPE FROM CENTRAL ASIA

THAT sentimental ogre the Russian has undergone a

queer metamorphosis since the advent of Bolshevism.

Turgueneff and Dostoievsky painted him as a species

of philosophical Caliban whose notions revolved in

a shadowy sphere betwixt lunacy and a flatulent

altruism. Now he has become a sort of hybrid

between a sea-lawyer and a missionary, with a dash

of the hooligan. That he is a bore of the first water

goes without saying. No nation can assume whole-

sale a reach-me-down system of sham, social "uplift,"

as it has done, and retain its character, or anything

resembling interest for the outsider, and your up-to-

date Muscovite, as a kind of perambulating Marxian

text-book, a1 though amusing enough at first, soon grows intolerably tiresome.

I was soon tired of his sententious attitude when

I left Orenburg. But when I got to Aralsk, on the Sea of Aral, four hundred miles lower down the line,

and found his ideas commingling with Kirghiz 165


surliness and ignorance, I began to lose my temper. And to lose one's temper in Bolshevist Asia is much

too like the sport of lion-taming to be quite healthy.

I shall never forget those tempestuous days on the shores and islands of that vast and dreary inland

Sea of Aral, which has an area almost as big as

Ireland. I t is humorous enough to think of them now, sitting in a comfortable study in a snug villa in

England, but to ponder too long on them makes the bones ache and the spine grow uncomfortably chilly,

and I can say quite definitely that Aralsk and its

neighbourhood is struck off my list of holiday resorts. Only Bulldog Drummond or Tom Mix would ever

think of popping over there for a little rest and change. And should they think of it I would advise them to book single fares only. For to die with

shoes off in the Aral district is regarded as the worst possible bad form.

T h e trouble began when, at Aralsk, I tossed a

lighraz piece high in the air to decide whether I would go by canal across the desert or by water over the " lake." " Tails ! " and the gold piece said (6 water."

As a pilgrim bound for the holy cities I was staying at the overcrowded serai, or public inn, from which I was desirous of departing at once, for

E S C A P E FROM C E N T R A L ASIA 167

a variety of reasons so numerous that I won't inflict

them upon my reader. My brother pilgrims, on

hearing my decision, agreed to accompany me, and

we hired a flat-bottomed, Kirghiz fishing-boat to

take us to Kizil Bullok, on the west coast of the sea,

where the shrines of Kharazm we wished to visit are

situated.

We arrived there only slightly damaged, and, our

iilgrimage accomplished, we decided to visit the

island of Kug Aral, the largest island in the Sea of

Aral, as the fees which the keepers of the shrine

extracted by way of hospitality were pretty high in

the piratical scale.

So we chartered another fishing vessel, and, as

the old ballad says, " We had not gone a league, a

league " when the weather itself grew Bolshevistic. There's a wind in these parts calculated to blow the

hair off a human, and, its flat keel notwithstanding,

the boat cut along like a Herrishoffer off Marble Head. A blinding storm of sand-dust blew off the

land, and the Kirghiz boatmen pattered prayers,

and threw pieces of rope into the water as rescue signals. One could see nothing but sand, but just

as I was making up my mind to a big swallow of water a large island loomed ahead, or rather an exten-

sive mud-flat festooned with huts and fishing-boats.


This was the island of Nikolai, and there was nothing for it but to get out and walk. I cursed inwardly, my recent pious vigils at Kizil Bull& notwithstanding, for I knew that the Bolshevists had

a naval base on this island, the purpose of which is

to keep the Trans-Caspian tribes in order, and that

any foreigner landing there would be suspect with a vengeance.

Introducing ourselves at one of the fishing huts,

we were kindly received by an old woman and her son, who regaled us with salt fish and milk. But

just as we were lighting cigarettes after the meal a naval officer arrived from the Rear-Admiral in charge

of the station, and asked to see our credentials. My London-made camera at once attracted his attention.

" Oh&! " he cried, " and where do you hail from, my friend? An English camera, eh? How am I to know you are a ~ i l g r i m , as you represent yourself to be? You know that this island is forbidden to strangers, I suppose ? "

(6 W e didn't come here because we wanted to," I retorted, for I had expected something of the sort, " you must blame the storm. I'll be only too happy

9,

to leave once it's over, you can be very certain.

" Oh, you'll leave all right," he sneered, " only with a little more circumstance than you arrived.


Take that camera, and come with me to the Admiral

at once."

The Admiral-I heard later he had been a skipper

on a paddle-boat on the Volga-liked me as little as

his lieutenant, and the upshot of it was that I was

sent to Krasnovodsk on the Caspian to work in the

dock-yards there. Protests and appeals were only

met by jeers, and next day I was bundled into a

crowded military train on the coast and taken by a

circuitous route, almost as long as that from Berlin

to Paris, to my unwanted destination.

Days passed, the food was abominable, and I grew so weak that by the time we reached the

Caspian port I could scarcely stand. But they

allowed me twenty-four hours' rest in a draughty

barracks, and then, - somewhat recovered, I was placed in a gang told off to load the small steamer

Boklzara with cotton bales for Baku.

Three days was about enough of this, and as I grew stronger I began to get restive, and to think of

extrication from my plight. The toil was terrifically hard, the bales enormously heavy, and the heat

unbearable. But my mind was working overtime,

and at last I conceived a stratagem by which I might

manage to make myself scarce.

To speed things up we had been told off into

WESTWARD TO MECCA

shifts, day and night gangs, and it fell in with my scheme that I was included in the latter. The little steamer was a tanker, and the reservoirs in her fore

part were heavy with Baku oil, which had not yet been drawn off in order to keep her well down in the water, and render loading more easy.

Oil and cotton ! What a blaze it would make

thought a companion I had made-a Kurdish chief

whose reduced fortune had driven him from home.

H e had a baker's dozen of cigarettes left, and a small paper of cardboard matches. As we were

numbered off for the night-shift he took care to be

at the tail of the line, and when we went on board,

bales on shoulders, he deposited his load, and then dropped on the deck and wriggled forward to here he had guessed the tanks lay. H e found them, easily

enough, as he told me afterwards, down a little hatchway. H e then unscrewed the vent, and heaped a pile of cotton-waste on the top. Then, striking a match with great caution, he set fire to the pile. It

smouldered, and when he was certain it was well

alight, he sauntered back to the gangway and took his place once more in the shoreward-going gang- Although not a party to the act, I was nevertheless interested in what he told me, and could do nothing to stop the explosion.

E S C A P E F R O M C E N T R A L ASIA 1 7 1

With my heart in my mouth I waited and waited.

Had the cotton waste smouldered out? Bale after

bale I carried patiently on to the deck of the Bok- hara, yet still not a streak of smoke rose from the

hatchway. Then all at once it came. A terrific

burst of flame and smoke belched forth from the

man-hole, and a yell of dismay rose from the guards

on shore. Higher and higher leapt the flames, and

almost from the first the fire burned with the fury of

Sheol. All was confusion. There was no provision

for an outbreak of fire on board, and the officials in

charge seemed helpless.

Now was my time. Elbowing my way to the officer in charge I hurriedly told him that I was

prepared to volunteer to run off the oil, the one

chance of saving the vessel. The oil-cocks were situated in the cubby-hole under the hatchway, and

if this were done the ship might be salved.

In panic he assented. " I t may mean death for

you," he said despairingly, " but if you succeed, I'll speak up for you to the Chief, At it, and see what

you can do."

I needed no second bidding but rushed up the

gangway. T o approach the pillar of flame might

have daunted the heart of a Rustem, but my object was to get on the other side of it. With the howls


of the crowd behind me, and the roar of the fire in

front, I sprinted across the deck, and, getting well

behind the geyser of flame, crept to the side and

dived into the water. Down I went, and pushing my feet against the steel plates of the vessel I swam

under water for some yards, then rose to the surface.

Then, taking a long breath, I dived deeply again,

and none too soon, for what I had expected happened

during my second plunge. With a roar like the opening convulsion of a volcano the oil-tank of

the Rokhara exploded, and the wreckage from the deck came pounding down the water on all

sides.

A horrible silence followed, and I rose to the

surface in absolute darkness save for the twinkling

lights of the dockyard. Then babel broke out on

the jetty. Oaths, commands, yells were mingled as in a battle, and, serious as my plight was, I could not help laughing at the riot behind me.

But how to proceed ? I was at a complete loss.

If 1 swam towards the lights I should certainly fall

into the hands of the Russians once more, and if they suspected my half knowledge of the cause of

disaster a firing-party would be the least 1 should

have to face. On the other hand, I could not swim

the Caspian.

E S C A P E F R O M C E N T R A L ASIA 173

Just as I was giving way to despair I bumped

straight into a boat, the dinghy of a small timber-

scow which had been berthed near the Bokhara. I crawled aboard, untied the rope, unshipped the oars,

and cautiously rowed out of the harbour, making as

little noise as possible. Then, when some distance

from the dock, and putting all I knew into it, I pulled vigorously for the outside of the harbour, and

in the direction of the coast.

All night I hugged the coast, and when morning

dawned found myself scarcely a stone's-throw from

green banks running down from low meadows where

large flocks of goats were feeding. By this time I was furiously hungry, so, 'drawing inshore, I left my

craft and jumped on land.

Not a dwelling of any kind was to be seen, but,

feeling that I must now be at least six or seven miles

from Krasnovodsk, I resolved to strike southwards

in the hope of reaching the Persian frontier, about

a hundred and eighty miles away. If I could only

reach Asterabad, where I had friends, I knew I should be all right, but nearly two hundred miles of

travel in such a country as this was a dismal prospect. r . I here were, however, I found, mitigating circum-

stances. The country is level and fertile, and the

people proved kindly.

I 7 4 WESTWARD TO MECCA

Most of my money was gone, but if only I could

keep out of the hands of the Bolshevists and shake

the dust of Turkestan off my feet, I could cheerfully

face even hunger and thirst.

I t took me three weeks to make my way back to

Asterabad, and absolutely nothing happened en route

that seems worth recounting. It was really a tramp from shepherd's hut to shepherd's hut, ~unctuated

by meals of millet bread, cheese and goat's milk. I travelled as a pilgrim, and was everywhere accepted

as such till I reached Meshad.

Then my wanderings directed me to the Shrines of Omar, the tent-maker at Nishapour, and I recalled Fitzgerald's efforts at translation of this master singer. I read the Persian, and its English version,

and, excellent though the latter was in its way, I felt

the two were poles apart. The reason is perhaps obvious because to judge the poetry of Omar by its translation would be as futile as to appreciate the songs of Robert Burns by an Arabic version. This truth dawned upon me the more forcibly as 1 approached the Shrines of Omar, where the mystic poet lived and died eight centuries ago.

Although it was not yet noon the sun was already making my journey uncomfortable, so I , a wander-

ESCAPE FROM C E N T R A L ASIA 175

ing pilgrim, sought the coolness of the glade.

At the gateway I alighted from my donkey,

tied it to a mulberry tree, and walked to the

entrance.

Here sat an old man on a carpet, writing a letter

for a peasant youth. O n my approach he pushed his

spectacles u p on to his forehead and eyed me

suspiciously, but the exchange of salutations of peace

and goodwill soon dispelled it. As a privilege from

an elder he asked me to sit beside him on the carpet,

but when I threw myself unceremoniously on the bare

ground with its few tufts of grass it did not take him

a moment to recite to me, by way of reprimand, this

couplet of Omar :

" And this delightful Herb, whose tender green Fledged the River's lip on which we lean- Ah ! Lean upon it lightly ! for who knows From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen! "

Listening to this-call it imagination or super-

natural impulse what you will-I sensed a spiritual

feeling grip me. I rose, lifted my hands, and

offered blessings upon Omar, the fount of Oriental

Occultism. The venerable scribe, learning my desire to visit the Shrine, began to collect his

belongings. Rolling his carpet, he tuckkd it under

his armi; his pen case, of papier mldchC, ornamented

WESTWARD TO MECCA

with floral designs, he held in his left hand; a

reed pen he placed between his cap and his ear, and

carrying his staff, he beckoned me to follow him to the interior of the garden.

As Persian gardens go this was not a fine one, but it seemed to be saturated with an air of mysticism.

I n the centre was the grave of that " Divine Poet of

Persia." W e both stood motionless and mute, as

before a mighty monarch. Then we lifted our hands

to bless the spirit of Omar, and my companion, as a

true admirer of his country, was so moved that tears

trickled down his age-worn cheeks.

" T o think that this country of ours," he said, # t this our rose garden, should be so altered is a

tragedy. Ancient history saw its dawn. We held

Eden within our borders, and sent the builders of

Babel from the East to the land of the twin rivers.

T o think that this nursery of culture and civilization

should now seek the Western methods, and forget its own, is immeasurably sad. I dread to think that

old Persia is dead and a new one is arising. ' 0

the culture of my country is passing-yes, passing to

oblivion. . . . 0 my country! "' And, as he sang

the following couplet of Omar, he sobbed like a

child.


"Alas, that Spring should vanish with the rose! That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close I The Nightingale that in the Branches sang, Ah, whence, and whither flown again-who knows ? "

W e were awakened from our meditation by the

sound of music from a corner of the garden. Some one was playing the flute, and a chorus of male

voices sang melodiously. T h e old man told me that

I need not go to see the singers because they them-

selves would be coming to the Shrine presently, and

were a band of Dervishes. Presently the music and

singing became more distinct, and I could see a

dozen or so venerable looking gentlemen wearing

high, felt caps and brown mantles, coming towards

the Shrine. They hardly noticed us.

In one of the corners of the floor they sat in a

circle. The singers sang loudly, and I noticed that

a small drum was added to other musical instru-

ments. They sang couplets of Molana Romi, or

those of Omar. For some time the singing con-

tinued without much apparent appreciation. Then

the singer struck the bar of Omar's immortal lines :

" For in and out, above, about, below, T i s nothing but a Magic Shadow-show, Played in a Box whose candle is the Sun, Round which we Phantom Figures come and go."

On this the whole scene was changed. Silent M


figures, clad in voluminous robes, heaved sighs,

clapped hands, threw themselves about; some fell

flat on their faces; others rose, and, at first, walking slowly round and round with their arms folded;

turned several times, then, revolving, dancing, turn-

ing with extraordinary velocity, singing loud and

long, they repeated in a frenzy of excitement,

" 'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show. . . . . . . Phantom Figures come and go, . . . Come and go .

9 9 . . . come and go.

C H A P T E R IX

OMAR AND SHAKESPEARE

As I was passing through some villages on my way

to the capital of Persia, a friend showed me a copy

of a Persian translation of Shakespeare. I t was the

work of a Persian of high rank. But why should a

Persian, loving Omar as a Persian only can, select Shakespeare for rendering into his language? The

explanation is simple. The philosophy of great art

is one and the same in all climes and all ages, which

can be well attested by a comparison between the

ideas underlying the work of the world's chief poets. Thus, their distant periods and environments

notwithstanding, the resemblance between the

philosophies of William Shakespeare and Omar

Khayyhm is neither superficial nor fortuitous, but arises out of that deep and almost supernatural

instinct which has always been the concomitant of

poetic genius of the first rank. Indeed, the mental

likeness between Omnr and the Bard of Avon earl be I 7 9


substantiated by scores of passages almost identical

in thought and sentiment.

T h e central idea animating both of these masters

of thought and verse is, indeed, the impermanence

of humanity, its evanescent and temporal character.

Man is the sport of a grim and relentless Fate which

treats him as a puppet; an image to be broken for its

pleasure. Says Macbeth,

" Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale 'Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."

Could anything be closer in thought to the first

part of this than a quotation from the Rubaiyat? I I F o r in and out, above, about, below,

"Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show, Played in a Box whose candle is the Stln

Kound which we Phantom Figures come and go."

Man is indeed clay, mere earth, say both the Eastern and the Western singers in their deeper notes of despondency.

" Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay Might stop a hole to keep the wind away."

says Shakespeare, and again and again Omar refers to man's earthy origin.

OMAR AND S H A K E S P E A R E 181

But there is a solution for man's woes and sorrows

in Wine.

" Go, suck the subtle blood o' the grape, Till the high fever seethe your blood to froth And so 'scape hanging, trust not the physician;"

says Timon of Athens to the thieves. And Timon

has a peculiar affinity with Omar. H e prefers " the

desert to the sown," he espies the folly that lurks in

all things worldly, even if he is by no means so sadly

jovial as the Persian philosopher or anti-philosopher.

And here we have the likeness between Shakespeare

and Omar well-defined. Both are indeed anti-

philosophers, unfriends of all systems of conventional thought. I t is with scorn that Omar refers to the I t two-and-seventy jarring sects." These can all be

confuted by the juice of the grape, just as Shakespeare

believes that the schools, and all their doctrines, can

be brought to nought by the power of love as

expressed in " Love's Labour's Lost." " The words

of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo," or

as we have it in " A Midsummer Night's Dream,"

" The thrice three Muses mourning for the death Of Learning, late deceased in beggary."

And who is more like Omar than Falstaff, the


drinker with the thinker's brain, the Bacchus with the

mind of a Rabelais? " If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked. If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned."

Wisdom is, indeed, the constant butt of both

poets. Says Omar in a well-known quatrain,

" Why, all the Saints and Sages who discussed O f the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust Like foolish Prophets forth their Words to scorn, Are scattered, and their mouths are stopt with dust."

Which is practically what Shakespeare exclaims when he writes,

" There is enough written upon this earth T o stir a mutiny in the mildest thought And arm the minds of infants to exclaim."

But it is not so much in word or phrase, but in

general tendency of thought and spirit that Omar and Shakespeare are akin. Indeed, Omar's notion

that the world is a mere puppet-show and that all that is beautiful within it must at length come to an end is echoed in Shakespeare's lines,

" Golden lads and girls all must, Like chimney-sweepers, come to dust."

Of course Shakespeare does not confine himself to this idea of the triumph of mortality as a general thesis. His imagination was much too universal for

OMAR A N D S H A K E S P E A R E 183

a notion so restricted, whatever the truth it might hold. But it is easy to see nevertheless that the

subject of fate beguiled by pleasure for a season, of

Kismet momentarily cheated, frequently commended

itself to him as suitable for artistic resent at ion. Thus it obviously underlies the plots of " Antony

and Cleopatra " and " Romeo and Juliet," in which

human happiness is regarded as the temporary foil

to sorrow and destiny.

Perhaps the circumstances of life in the times

and environments in which Shakespeare and Omar lived may have given them a similar outlook. At the Persian Court, as at that of Elizabeth, gross

favouritism was rife, vice was enthroned in high

social circles, and " patient merit " was ignored. In

both the England of Shakespeare and the Persia of

Omar high spiritual qualities were at a discount, and

what might be called a sordid and material outlook prevailed.

Perhaps this sufficed to make these poets dis-

gusted with mundane affairs and to regard them as

paltry and undistinguished. But, be that as it may, Shakespeare in a manner partly enfranchised himself

from this crude and anarchical philosophy although he never seems altogether to have outsoared it. Rarely does he display that whole-souled and fervent


trust in the Almighty cause of all things which

Goethe, Dante and Chaucer constantly exhibit.

Omar, on the other hand, runs the whole gamut of

blasphemy, and recks not, convinced that Fate is a

blundering demon, and that no wisdom inspires the

First Cause. If Shakespeare hints more than

occasionally at some such state of things, and even

says now and again, he still subscribes a doubt.

And a doubt in his world was equal to wholesale renunciation in ours. Yes, Omar and Shakespeare

have indeed much in common. Like Hamlet, Omar

is more than a little " mad."

CHAPTER X

THE INFLEXIBLE PERSIA

SINCE those golden years when Noshairwan ruled,

and Hafiz sang to this our own somewhat colourless

day, Persia has undergone many vicissitudes. But

in one respect the land of the Lion and the Sun is

not altered. I t has helped the imagination of men

throughout the ages, and still retains the power of

conquering hearts.

The spirit of philosophy, a happy-go-lucky out-

look on life's tragedies, a confirmed belief in the old

adage, " What is written is written," is there in

Teheran to-day as it was a thousand years ago. I t

constitutes the inner life of these lovable people, for

you have but to walk through the bazaars of the

Persian capital, through the groves of its suburbs,

or the arcaded streets of a provincial town, and you

will both " see " and " smell " the East.

Geographical conditions, as is well known, have

a great deal to do with the temperament of the 185

WESTWARD TO MECCA

people, and a favourable climate makes the Persian

a happy, natural and simple person, with tremendous

emotions. They will laugh just as quickly as they

will cry, and be quite in earnest about it.

A practical manifestation of this I observed in Teheran during the " Ushra," or the day of mourning

on the tenth of Mohurram. My host secured a place for me on a house-top in a square, from where I could

watch the procession to advantage. H e himself had

gone to swell the crowd. I was there at three. The

procession was due then, but it actually arrived at

about four-thirty p.m. There is nothing novel in

that for either Persia or India. What is, after all, they say, only an hour and a half in the life of the ages ?

T h e first indication of the approach of the

procession was a weird sound which seemed to strike

my ears from all sides. I could hardly locate it, but

presently the thud of the drum, and distant yells of a crowd, indicated the right of the square. The drum sounds and the shouts of the crowd became

louder and louder.

The procession at last entered the square. First

of all came men with small drums, then men waving

tall, black flag-poles with flags bearing Persian inscriptions, passed us. This was followed by a

THE INFLEXIBLE PERSIA 187

number of standard-bearers who bore signs of various

descriptions representing swords and scimitars.

These they held aloft and waved. But the most

picturesque item of all came behind these. About

half a dozen men held a piece of black cloth tightly

stretched between two poles, on which inscriptions

were sewn in gold thread.

The whole crowd, as far as one could see, was

composed of men mourners in peculiar disguises, and

the realistic touch was supplied by a number who

wore long white shirts, the fronts of which were

besmeared with red paint to represent blood. They

were beating their chests with all their force, and

here and there in the crowd one would see a devotee,

fresh from Kerbela, beating upon his shirtless chest

with a heavy spiked chain, the result being that, in

his case, no red paint was required. These were

followed by a number of horsemen representing the

victorious army of Yazid, and then a magnificent

horse was led by, which was supposed to be that

of Yazid himself. A wailing chorus amongst the

mourners was repeated every other minute.

" Husain Chay Shud! " " What happened to

Husain? " asked a voice and the mourners cried

aloud, " Husain Shaheed Shud! Husain received

Martyrdom! " And then they beat upon their

WESTWARD TO MECCA

breasts with great force, and each time with renewed energy.

This lasted until dusk, but the scene, however

gruesome, leaves a lasting impression upon the mind

of the extraordinary sincerity of traditional sympathy and association that so vigorously excites the human

suffering in the minds of the Persians. The fact

that the memory of a battle which was fought over ten centuries ago should still plunge a nation in such

an extreme degree of sorrow is an item of no small

significance to those who study the psychology of the

Eastern mind.

But who has not read " Omar the Tent-Maker"

in the West, and adored that master singer of

Ancient Persia?

What then chiefly attracted me was the life of its

humanity, because seeing and hearing it makes one

appreciate that Persia is the true child of the hoary

East. Such a study can give you just a peep in at

the window of a Persian's heart. But this can best

be done in small hamlets tucked away from the beaten path, and this I wished to do. The village

life of a Persian is of another world; it is so foreign

that, even in Teheran, people may be amazed to hear of it. In these villages, on my way to Kurdi-

stan, I found mystery, folk-lore and superstition.

THE I N F L E X I B L E P E R S I A 189

For instance, when the birth of a child is expected

a mullah is called to the house where such an event

is to take place, and no matter what the time,

midnight or midday. I t is his duty to call the Azan,

Call of Prayer, when the birth is imminent.

When a child is born it is not fed on anything

else but melted butter and Khakshair. For three

days no milk of any kind is given.

A foster-mother may also be employed. For the

first three days a dagger is placed under the pillow

of the mother with the idea of saving her health from the " sharpness " of the evil eye. The child is

wrapped in a quilt, and is tied round with a cord.

Beggars, or a tired traveller are not permitted to see

a newborn babe, the reason being that the child may

not grow up like one of these. The child has various

charms suspended round its neck to ward off the evil

eye, also a kind of stone, like an opaque piece of

glass, round in shape, and about the size of a six- pence, is often fixed to the cap of a child.

The stone is called Sung-Baba-Quli. The shape

is supposed to be like a blinded eye which might

protrude out of its socket, and is fixed to the cap in

case any man with an evil eye should look at the child, when his eye would be blinded like the stone.

Should a child become ill, it is supposed that it

WESTWARD MECCA

has either become affected by an evil eye or that

something has frightened it. At first a trial is made to discover whether the illness is on account of a

fright. T h e child is brought into a room, and four

or five women gather together around him. Some aromatic seeds are thrown on a brazier full of blazing

charcoal, and at once a certain familiar perfume is

emitted through the burning of these seeds; then a

whitish aromatic powder is taken by one of the

women in the palm of her hand, and with this she

goes thrice round the child. The powder is then

thrown into the charcoal, and, as it burns, a whitish

froth is left, like a sponge. This is taken out of the

brazier and placed on the table, and each woman

tries to discover what shape the " foam form " represents. One woman fancies, for instance, that

it is like a hen, and therefore a hen has frightened

the child; a second may think it to be like a frog, and a frog has, therefore, frightened the child. But

should it be a case of the evil eye animals are

sacrificed.

On the seventh day after the child's birth the naming ceremony is held. This consists of invita-

tions to near relations, and a mullah is also asked to

come. The ceremony begins with feasting; then the

mullah reads certain passages of the Koran, and the

THE I N F L E X I B L E P E R S I A 191

name of the child is uttered loudly three times in

each of his or her ears. I t ends with a feast for the

relations and a good fee for the mullah.

On the fortieth day after the child's birth a ceremony takes place called the Aab Chalum. The

child is taken in the arms, and a piece of cloth, which

must be waterproof, is held over him. Some water is thrown on the cloth and allowed to flow down to

the ground; the idea being .that water has passed

over the child. The superstition is that all the bad

effects of a malignant eye have for ever been washed

off, and that henceforth the child is immune from

such. The same day the mother is allowed to come

out of her apartments. Henceforth the child is

allowed to go anywhere and to anybody, provided

that his eyes are smeared with Surma, and an Alif

has been placed on his forehead, between his

eyes.

A day comes when the hair of the child has to be

shaved. A small ceremony is held, and silver or

gold, to the weight of the hair, is given to a charity,

and a goat is sacrificed. The goat must be killed

in a room, not direcfly under ihc sky, and the

portion of the floor on which the blood has been shed

must be dug up. In that hole thus duq C the skin and

bones of the goat are buried. The flesh of the goat

WESTWARD TO MECCA

is not given to any parents or relations, but to tigers.

O n Thursday nights aromatic seeds are burnt in

the house to ward off evil, and the child is not

allowed to go out on those evenings.

When children grow up they are either sent to

the mixed classes or to the mullah. When quite young, women teachers teach them, and at the break-

up of the school the teachers impress the hands and

the tongue of a child with a thimble, and say to

the child that if the child salutes his parents upon

the return to the house the impression will remain

on the tongue, whereas, if he is naughty, there will be no impression the next day when the child returns

to the school.

T h e impressions on the palms of the hand are

made because if the hands were employed for any mischief the marks of the thimble will disappear. If

the child behaves well, and has saluted his parents,

but comes to his mother and says that the marks

have disappeared, and that he would be punished at

school for having none, the mother takes a thimble

and impresses the hands and the tongue once more as a mark of good behaviour.

CHAPTER XI

THE HUMAN OIL CURE

FROM this brook-skirted country of the Shahs I then

journeyed westward to Kurdistan. No longer did I see the poppy fields or the shepherd boy with his ancient flute.

I t was only a short while ago that the world was

startled by the news that in Northern Mesopotamia

a prodigious quantity of oil had been found. Finan-

cial magnates, engineers and hangers-on trekked to

the scene, but they knew not what lay beyond the

Mosal ranges, merging as they do into those wild

mountains of Kurdistan. Had they wandered up

those rugged passes the world would have been left

guessing as to the reason of their non-return to work

on the oil-fields of Iraq.

But it was just there that " evil spirits guided

me," as the Persians say.

If sleet is not lashing you as you pass through those haunted Kurdish hills then the howling wind,

I 9 3 N

WESTWARD TO MECCA

laden with freezing temperature, sweeps down from

the northern peaks. It was in such weather that I found myself stumbling my way in and out of the

gullies, whilst my nag trailed behind. H e had long passed the stage of giving me a lift. Nothing resembled him better than a big, wet, brown mouse.

H e carried my rations, what there was of them-

onions, dry bread and honey-and I felt like going

on and on towards some unknown destination,

although I knew that if only the wind subsided a

little I could be in a Kurdish village before sundown.

With heart full of hope I pushed on despite all

the physical exhaustion, and longed to turn the bend just before me, beyond which, far below, I could already see fires lit, and fleeting figures crossing and recrossing before its brilliant glow. At last 1 came

round that bend and espied the broad valley, in

the centre of which, some five miles away, amidst orchards, nestled the village where I imagined

warmth and hospitality awaited me. But, as I almost ran down the slope, my eyes

fixed on the village, my hill pony stopped, sniffed, and was persuaded to follow me only after a hard whack. Every ten or fifteen paces from this point

he would halt, and when, for the tenth time, he kicked out I was more than annoyed and started

THE HUMAN OIL C U R E I95

belabouring him. At this juncture the " ping " of a

bullet rang above me, followed by a shrill challenge, " Hold, where goest thou? " This challenge echoed

and re-echoed in the gullies; then silence.

What an outlandish Kurdish method it was, I thought. I of course stopped, but before I could

gather sufficient intelligence to get my rifle out from

under my voluminous, sheepskin coat another and

yet another bullet spat past me to right and left, over

and beyond, till I was surrounded by flying bullets,

none of which seemed to be intended to hit me.

" Move not, nor fumble for thy fowling-piece ! " shrieked another voice from behind a large boulder

no more than fifty yards above me. And then, leaping, yelling men were upon me. Their curls

hung over their shoulders, murderous-looking knives

were stuck in their belts; their feet were unshod, and

they all covered me with their rifles.

They then proceeded to disarm me, and not

touching my pack on the pony ordered me to climb

the rugged goat-track up the hill. Resistance being impossible I preceded this wild procession, and when

I was not going quickly enough, or stumbled and fell, an occasional jab of their long knives kept me

well up to whatever time they wished to set to get

nle to their lair.


U p and up and on I climbed, my captors gibber- ing gleefully, running up and jumping down in the

manner of a war-dance, while I smarted under the

thought of being so tied up and led like a goat to the

altar of sacrifice, without as much as an opportunity

of exchanging a single shot with these prowlers of

the hills. And I, ,an Afghan, reared in the fields of

powder and shot.

We had by now crept into the night, and the wild wind was becoming wilder at each step, but I had

passed caring for the cold. My captors were clearly not brigands. They were such as do not touch the

property of a captive, or deal more or less honourably by allowing their quarry to pit his skill against theirs a t sniping. Their tactics, dress, weapons,

language all breathed evil.

These benumbing conditions had so stupefied me

that only when one of them thrust his paw-like hand

under my chin, nearly twisting my head off my neck,

did I realize a change of scenery, and that we had actually arrived at their den.

A dozen men sat under the shadow of an over-

hanging cliff, armed to the teeth; their wizened features were not exactly murderous but seemed to

me, in my perilous condition, uncanny. They then beckoned me and I was taken to the mouth of a cave

THE HUMAN OIL CURE I97

round the edge of a precipice and which over1ooke.d

the valley. The merriment amongst these men was extreme.

" We have now got the cure ! W e must get it this

night! " they kept repeating. That I was the cure

was fairly evident, but in what manner I was at

a loss to imagine. A cure for whom; a cure for

what ?,

In the cave I was stripped of all my clothing; then

two men rubbed melted fat all over my body and,

after blindfolding me, they led me out of this smoky den into the chilly air outside.

I must then have passed through a labyrinth of

passages, for I alternately experienced cold blasts of

the open air and the smoky atmosphere within, till I heard a curious babel of tongues, half Turkish, half

Kurdish; some jargon of these remote parts. This faded into a hush as I came into a very close

atmosphere blended with an aroma of melted fat, aromatics and a foul smell of wet sheepskins.

When the bandage was removed from my eyes I could not for a moment focus my vision in the glare

of two smoky torches which blazed on the right and

the left of a grotesquely-dressed old man. Another

grey-bearded ruffian sat on the piles of Kurdish, felt rugs. Both wore huge sheepskin coats, and half a

WESTWARD TO MECCA

dozen or more attendants, two of them were no other

than my captors, hung about the door.

But what appalled me most was the sight of blood with which a man had besmeared his right hand and

who was then engaged in roasting a goat's skull over

a big fire in the corner. I was tied up again, and to

a stack near the fire. A sort of dwarf, iron tripod was placed over the fire, and on the top of this was

placed an earthen bowl, whilst a rope hung loosely

above it from a tree trunk wedged across the ceiling of the cave.

66 Here is a young man of sunburnt complexion, 0 Hakim," barked the chief to the other old man. 66 How dost thou propose to produce the cure from him for my ailments?" T h e Hakim (doctor) rising, approached the rope that hung from the beam; examined the tripod; clanged together two iron pegs,

and looked me up and down. This took about ten

minutes-or was it ten years-after which, adopting a ghoulish smile, he addressed his patron in a brazen

CL voice. This man is to be hung by the feet to the beam, the iron pegs are to be driven through his skull, and what juice trickles 'down into the bowl must simmer over a slow fire to make thy medicine, and to cure thee for ever and ever, my holy master ! " TO 'describe the then state of my mind is

THE H U M A N OIL CURE

impossible. I had at this stage begun to lose all

feeling. But whether I felt hot or cold, alive or

dead, I cannot now say. Grunts of approval around

me were all that I now remember. What the chief

replied my ears failed to record. Somebody was

feeling me all over; my bones, flesh and hair were

being carefully examined, and the tripod stood grue-

somely waiting all the while.

I must have fainted at this point, and what passed

afterwards I do not know, till I found strong hands

massaging my neck. Then my eyes were bandaged

again, and I was being led by two men. "Wake up,

wake up," they growled in my ears, "thy life is

safe. Thou has moles on thy arms, and there-

fore the medicine man finds thee unfit for making

a cure."

My relief at this speech can be well imagined,

and it became greater still when not only my clothes,

but what little money I then possessed, was handed

back to me. That these men were not of the

ordinary type of brigand was evident by this act, but

what they actually were I could never afterwards

discover, though I made many inquiries. From now onward, and for hours together, I

stumbled down the hilly slopes, led by some of these

men; and then, all of a sudden, I was abandoned.


A wild wind was blowing, but my denurnbed

hands came to the rescue, and, untying the bandages

from my eyes, 1 found myself back again at the bend of the road from which they had taken me captive.

So I struggled down to the Kurdish village I had

seen before my capture, where the headman, after

hearing my narrative, hummed and hawed a great

deal, and stroked his beard.

" It was Allah's will that this should have happened," he said. "Yes, many know of the

'devil's den somewhere up yonder where an infidel, brigand chief lies ill and seeks a cure. Through the

human, holy oil as he calls it. None but the

demented now use that road up the hill."

CHAPTER XI1

THE KINGDOM O F BAGHDAD

VERY much battered in condition and finance I eventually reached Mosal, and then Khanay Qeen, from whence I took the train down to Baghdad. For

if I was now to continue on my pilgrimage to Mecca

the easiest way would now be by way of Basra,

Karachi, Bombay and Jeddeh : because, unhappy,

political relations between Iraq and Nejd had

rendered a traveller's journey in a south-westerly

'direction somewhat unsafe.

But once in Baghdad I felt a sense of security and

peacefulness. Something of the 'dread engendered

by the perils I had been through was lifted, and I roamed unmolested through the streets where the

Khalifs had trod during the days of the great glory of

Islam.

Here both the British and the Arab I found

engaged in the great experiment of giving Iraq what

that country seems never to have had, a sense of

nationhood; and what struck me very forcibly was that

they were being very successful in their task. The Baghdad Sore has been banished by the

2 0 1

WESTWARD MECCA

medical men there; new roads are being laid, and

organization is moving apace. Those tortuous lanes of Baghdad, where danger lurked, are now cleaned

up; departmental as well as private buildings were

being constructed; but the mud of Baghdad, which

makes its streets such an inconvenience during the

wet weather, is there as usual, and the dance-halls and

Casinos overlook the river !

Iraq's great problem is, of course, the sparseness

of its population. I n a country of about three times the size of England and Wales there are no more than

3,000,ooo souls ; and whilst the agricultural openings

are no less here than in the Nile Valley, the Egyptian

population of the riverain area is fully four times

as much as that of Mesopotamia. This, in itself,

indicates the comparatively undeveloped potentialities

of Iraq.

I n many respects, these three Vilayats of the old

Turkish Empire hold the richest future for the scientific handling of agriculture. The dates of

Basra are world-renowned; grapes, even oranges, are

to be found in abundance, and wheat and barley can be sown on a large scale. With the further develop-

ment of irrigation it has been authoritatively proved

that this can become one of the largest cotton growing

areas in the world, not even excepting America or

THE SHIA SHRINE O F KAZIMAN N t A R B A O H D A P

THE KINGDOM OF BAGHDAD 203

India. I t is, for instance, within the capacity of the

land to export no less than 3,000,ooo bales a year;

nor are the mineral deposits of Iraq unknown.

The tapping of these natural resources was never

seriously attempted-why they were not sufficiently

worked before the war may be beside the question-

but with the advent of the present regime Iraq has

entered upon a new era of advancement.

The very first task to which King Feisal's Govern-

ment addressed herself was the improvement of

communications, as it was quickly realized that the

development of a country of I 50,000 square miles very

largely depended upon good roads and bridges, and

moreover upon modern methods of transport. In the

olden days it took seven days to reach Basra from

Baghdad, but now the distance is covered in less

than twenty-two hours. There was then only a

fragment of 1 7 0 miles of Berlin-Baghdad railway in

Mesopotamia; the mileage covered to-day exceeds 816. The picturesque Arabana-a horse-drawn convey-

ance-has given place to motor-cars. At least 300

bridges have been built, and the floating bridges have

been increased from the nine of pre-war time to

seventeen.

When, before the war, Sir William Willcocks

surveyed Iraq, and drew up a scheme of irrigation


for the benefit of the cotton growing belt between the

Tigris and the Euphrates, i t was thought that an

immediate advantage of his labours would be taken.

But it languished, and in the absence, at that date,

of any organized irrigation department beyond a half-

hearted attempt a t the construction of Hindiyah

Barrage, the entire irrigation was left to flood, with the result that, when the barrage fell later into the

hands of the Iraq Government, it was found to be

totally unworthy, and cost the present administra-

tion some six Lakhs of rupees to put in order. I n addition, four more canals have been opened,

which totally cover an area of half a million acres.

T h e army of the country was thoroughly organized, and, although certain matters of defence still remain unsolved, a great step forward has been

taken. T h e British help in this connection, as well as in other spheres of administration, has been freely sought. One great advantage that Iraq possesses is

that, at any given moment, its standing army can be

augmented by local tribesmen of the desert, who are both brave and war-like. At present, it is agreed,

however, that the strength of the Iraq army should be 15,000. Allied to it are the improved conditions

which bring internal security, and maintained by the


police of the country. T h e total strength, both

mounted and otherwise, of the police is 6,000 men,

and when the extent of the country, over which they

maintain the law is considered, their part is highly

commendable.

Education, likewise, has progressed to an

unbelievable 'degree in Iraq. In place of 160 primary schools with 6,470 pupils, there are now 2 2 8

primary schools with 22,7 I 2 pupils. Adult educa-

tion, which was unheard of in Mesopotamia of old, is

now an established fact. Female education, too, is

receiving its due attention, for there are no less than

31 girls' schools and 4,055 students. These figures

must be judged comparatively with other Oriental

countries, and especially in regard to those nations

of the East with whom the idea of self-determination

is just appearing, after a protracted struggle with the

ancient thraldom of its autocratic rulers.

T h e news of the find of an " oil-well " with

enormous capacity, news which startled the economic circles of two hemispheres, proves once again that

the efforts directed towards the exploitation of

Mesopotamia were not wholly an endeavour of plant

the rose in the sand and then expect the flower to bloom in the desert.

A healthy excitement over this latest and pro-


digious oil find is already evident to those who read

their morning papers intelligently. Its vibration was

said to have been noticeable in Wall Street within a very few hours of the news.

But its discovery never truly surprised students of Middle Eastern history. Oil in great volume was always expected to be found there, for bitumen was

used as mortar as far back as 4,000 B.c., at Tel-el-

Ubaid, and its mention in the Bible for caulking

the Ark of Noah shows that the idea was fzmiliar

to the ancient Jews. Even before the Roman

legions passed farther East, the inflammatory nature

of Mesopotamian petroleum was demonstrated by primitive refining at Kirkuk.

But it was not till 1895 that Jacques de Morgan brought the oil potentialities before the Western world, and within the last few years, the Anglo- Persian Oil Company has also struck oil there, SO that

it may not be long before ~ipe-l ines are laid right up to the Mediterranean seaboard from Iraq. The

Turkish Petroleum Company, to which a concession was granted in 1925, has been more fortunate in owning this rich tapping of oil, and large royalties will now flow into the Iraq Exchequer since the boom

in oil, the Government's share being four shillings to every ton of oil produced. There is also said to be

THE KINGDOM O F BAGHDAD 207

no limit to the quantity of the oil which the recent find is capable of yielding.

A review of conditions obtaining in Iraq, and the

manner in which that young nation, under the leader-

ship of the enlightened and romantic figure of King

Feisal, has responded to the general cause of the

world's progress, which augurs well for its future, and

Great Britain has every reason to congratulate herself

in having assisted her "ward" so honourably as

practically to have brought her to the highest degree

of cultural and economic advancement.

I feel that independence is richly deserved by the people of Iraq, and with the splendid record

of achievement which characterizes the labours

of His Majesty King Feisal, the cause of Anglo-

Mesopotamian rapprochement is practically assured.

Journeying from Baghdad to Basra I passed a

desolate tract of hard sand, but cultivation efforts

have been made in places even here. At Basra I took aboat to Karachi, ultimately landing at Bombay,

and there bided my time till I could start once more

on my long road to Mecca.

Whilst' waiting at Bombay for a ~ i l g r i m boat I visited an institute where they farm the cobra, one of India's deadliest snakes. This snake takes a great

annual toll of life in this country, but the institute in

WESTWARD MECCA

question provides a practically certain remedy for

cobra poison, though, to obtain the remedy, it is necessary to have a sufficient supply of the poison, and for that purpose it runs a snake-farm.

The reptiles are kept in wooden boxes, and are

attended to by an Indian orderly when a supply of

venom is required.

When this is needed a cobra is selected, and, a

syringe full of the cobra-bite remedy having been prepared in case of accident, the cobra is "milked"

of its poison in the following manner.

The orderly, armed with a bamboo cane about

four feet long, tips the cobra out of its box on to a piece of matting. The reptile coils itself, inflates its

hood, hisses, and, with its tongue flickering like a

flame, looks round for a way of escape. Eventually

with head thrust forward it glides off across the matting.

The assistant, who has been awaiting this movement, then stoops and with his right hand lays the rod lightly but firmly on the cobra's neck, pinning the snake to the ground. With his left hand he quickly

grasps the animal behind the jaws and raises its head. The cobra is now in a violent temper and hisse, and lashes its tail with fury. Then the assistant grips the

tail with his right hand, which, by this time, has


released the cane, and stands erect, the reptile out-

stretched between his two hands. Another assistant

who has been standing ready with a clean wine-glass,

the top of which is covered with a piece of washleather,

now thrusts the rim between the snake's jaws. I t

opens its mouth widely, the poison fangs descend

from the upper jaw, pierce the leather, and a golden

trickle of the venom can be seen flowing into the

glass.

When the venom ceases to run the glass is placed

on a side table, and a glass funnel picked up in its

stead. This is cautiously introduced into the cobra's

gullet and an egg-fillip is poured into it.

When the astonished and now thoroughly angry

reptile has swallowed this last indignity the funnel is

removed, he is dropped into his box, the lid is quickly

slammed down and secured, and he is borne off hissing

and scraping until he is again required.

The venom is then dried, and varying quantities

are injected into horses, whose blood ultimately

develops substances capable of making the poison

harmless. The blood is removed periodically,

purified, and stored in sealed glass capsules. I t is in

that form that it arrives at the hospitals and dis-

pensaries in India, where it is known as antivenine.

When a case of snake-bite arrives at a dispensary 0

2 10 W E S T W A R D TO MECCA

the patient is given an injection of this antivenine,

and his chances of recovery are increased a hundred-

fold. T h e antivenine, however, is only efficacious

when both the wound and the antivenine came from

the same species of snake.

There were other sights, too, in Bombay, but my

mind was so fixed upon my one great purpose-the pilgrimage to the Cradle of Islam-that I felt I had roamed long enough in its quest. But soon the boat

which was to take me to Mecca arrived in Bombay, and I was ready.

MECCA AT LAST

IN a fierce midday heat, enveloped in clouds of

choking dust, sweating and with jaded faces, a

heterogeneous mass of Moslim pilgrims plodded

their way to Bombay harbour. Afghans, Persians,

Javanese, Indians a n d Uzbegs, all staring at one

another and endeavouring to understand the diverse

languages they had never heard before.

On the arrival of the medical officer the babel of

tongues died away; all sat on the floor of the shed

and were vaccinated. But as soon as a medical certificate was granted, and the pilgrim was free to

move, he could be seen hurrying along the passage-

way with his left shirt-sleeve rolled up. Where was

he going I wondered, till 1 noticed him behind the

shed washing the wound inflicted by the vaccinator.

Many think that the lymph is an impurity of the cow,

and hence not fit to be absorbed by the skin of a

" faithful " bound for Mecca.

Close by was the quay, alongside it the pilgrim 211


ship for Jeddeh, SO that when the final word " depart " \

was given by the medical authorities there was a rugb

to the gangway. And what a stampede it ;is! Stalwart Pathans of the frontier, weak and ill-fed

Bengalis, sleepy eyed men of Bokhara, veiled women

carq ing children in their arms, all made one dash.

They carried their valuables along with them, im

sacks, in crudely made tin boxes or bulging baskets

insecurely tied with ropes. The sacks, however,

predominated as items of " portable luggage "

intended for " Cabin only." All were excited, and

the noise and smell of the East blended with the

sanctified air of the ~ i l g r i m ship. They rushed the

gangway; people pushing against the sacks; bundles and baskets pushing into the people. A water recep

tacle peeping out of a sack was pushed out by the

jolting crowd, and then slipping from the hands of

its owner fell into the sea. Thus the narrow gang-

way led the " faithful" on to the deck and down

beneath its cavernous hatches. Once aboard they

dumped themselves anywhere and anyhow, lay

panting and tired, only thankful for the fact that

at least one of the worst parts of the journey was over.

Then came three shrill blasts from the siren, the thud of the engines; we slowly moved away from the

MECCA AT L A S T

Indian shores amidst the cries of " Allaho-Akbar,

Allaho-Akbar ! " (God is great, God is great !) Had

I realized before embarking on the Gurgislan what

my experiences on board, and on the journey, were to

be, I might perhaps have paused on the gangway,

although the gangway itself was not exactly a ~ e a c e f u l

place for meditation. Yet, as a pious Moslim, I had

a craving to visit the holy city of my faith, and also

to join the Grand Moslim Conference at Mecca.

Taking, therefore, little or no account of the future,

believing in what is written is written, relying on the

philosophy of my fathers, I resolved to face the dis-

comforts and possible perils inseparable from a

pilgrimage to Mecca, as stoically as possible.

Existence on board, to one used to the ordinary

comforts of life was, to say the least of it, harassing.

And although much has recently been done to improve

conditions, yet the devotees were packed like pilchards

in a tin, and as they were compelled to make their

devotions and ablutions where they sat one had to

become expert in dodging the slops so liberally broad- casted by the devout.

The worst phase of the voyage began on the third

day after we had left Karachi for Jeddeh, for

practically every pilgrim was in the throes of ma! de

met.: and one of them, who, only the day before, had

W E S T W A R D MECCA

told me that he could not be sea-sick, was prostrated

and prayed loudly for death to release him.

'I'hese shouting, and harrying scenes ceased to

some extent when the sky became grey, the wind swept the vessel, and when the waves beat her sides with

more than ordinary force. Then corpse-like men lay about the decks on their charcoal sacks, on coiled

ropes, everywhere, uttering not a word, hardly interested in existence and refusing all food and

drink. They thought an evil spirit had come upon

t.he ship. But it takes more than a rough sea to hide

life altogether, for as soon as the weather subsided,

these corpse-like souls rolled up their beddings, sat

up and cooked their food. T h e Persians made tea, the Bengalis skinned fish, the Pathans were busy

with Palaws of excellent flavour. During their spell

of sea-sickness the pilgrims had lost all clear idea of

their purpose, but on recovering, they soon re-

membered the solemn reason that had induced them

to journey to the city of their childhood's dreams and lif e-long prayers.

T h e air on board the ship was then "thick with religion " ; prayer-carpets were spread ; recitations of

the Koran were chanted; doctors of theology were

busy reading to the devotees those chapters of the

Holy Book of Islam which related to this part of the

MECCA A T L A S T

journey of the pilgrimage. In the afternoons religious

discussions took place, even political; and both used

to end where they began.

And thus the life of the faithful on board a pilgrim

ship was spent, till, one day, soon after dawn, the

captain came on to our deck and pointed out to us in

the distant haze a dark blue line-the Holy Land of

Islam ! The Arabian coast! The port of Jeddeh ! We could hardly speak for excitement. Little by little the blue coast became clearer, and we stood

watching it dressed in our Ahrams-the regulation

pilgrim costun~e-till the white city of minarets and

domes lay as if cut out in marble.

The ship dropped anchor some two miles from

the shore. No ship can go nearer than this as the

reefs are very numerous. Many negotiated the journey from ship to shore in tiny sailing boats, which

were tossed like cockle-shells in the off-shore surf.

The first sight of Jeddeh gripped me, and as a

Moslim I gazed at it with pleasure mingled with awe

and reverence. Beyond that city, at a distance of fifty miles or more, lay Mecca, the goal of my hopes. The

Holy of Holies of every Moslim. Life's dream, I thought, had at last been realized. The all or of my

face and the furtive tears that dimmed my eyes were at any rate indications of my emotion. The scene was


strangely familiar, for had I not faced the Holy City

five times every day of my life in prayer. Absorbed in these thoughts I remained in Jeddeh for the night,

and on the fo~llowing day started out towards Mecca.

Those of us who were the guests of the King were

bundled into a large Ford car, and told that by this

means we were to travel to Mecca. .

We had not proceeded far when a halt was made

at the reputed tomb of Eve. Curious as to the grave of my great ancestress, 1 got out to examine it.

Eve must have been a lady of formidable proportions, for the original grave, I was told, was some

eight feet long. I t was perhaps as well, therefore, that she had not survived to welcome us in the flesh, for although it is rumoured that we Moslims have an

eye for ladies of heroic proportions we draw the line at the titanic. But I was told that the grave had mysteriously extended itself by the time I arrived to its present gigantic dimensions. On payment of a

fee, I learned, one could receive an oracular message from the buried progenitress of suffering humanity. This was of course supplied by a confederate in an underground crypt, who, for a shilling or two, droned

6 6 out a prophecy." Fortunately the evil practice has been stopped since the advent of the Wahabis.

As we trundled over the sandy track, the grilling

- .-

AM A R M l?awm w WfM:

MECCA A T LAST 217,

heat of the desert almost overpowered us. I was

dressed in the traditional Ahram, which consists of

two sheets, one for the upper part of the body,

another for the lower, and knotted together, as pins

or sewing are frowned on by Moslim law. In accord-

ance with immemorial custom, too, my head was

shaved and unprotected from the merciless sun. T o

make matters worse no water was to be had. After

twenty-five miles of this torture, with parched lips and

scorched limbs, we drew up at the post of Bahra,

where, we were told, there was a well, but the water

was undrinkable.

Fever was already on me, and when I saw our driver dip a tin and drink greedily, I felt a keen sense

of nausea. I t was impossible to drink, so I crawled back into the Ford, and we jolted on for some distance,

until one of the rear wheels sunk deep in a sand-heap.

Here we alighted, and strove to move the venerable car, but to no purpose, and much to the

contemptuous amusement of a passing bedouin, who,

from the back of his swift-trotting camel', jeered at

us unmercifully. I ( It serves you right for bringing that creation of

Satan into the sacred land," he yelled. "Why can't

you travel on camel-back like other folk? See, I can make my camel stop when I want and go when I wish


him to. Take that iron devilment back to the Devil, who made it." And so he passed on his way with a sardonic laugh, but his commentary rather reminded

me of what I had heard concerning the jeers made

at the expense of the pioneers of motoring in the

'nineties.

After an hour's exhausting labour we managed to liberate our car and proceed once more. This time I took the wheel myself, and, Ford or no Ford, made

the old machine career over the desert sands as never

before did one of its peace-loving inventor's make.

SO we raced past creeping caravans, scattering the

water-sellers and guards at village posts, until at last

we came within sight of Mecca. By this time I was well in the grip of fever, and

it was with pounding head and swaying legs that

later I negotiated the sevenfold circumambulation

of the sacred Kaaba; that Holy of Holies, believed to have been built by Adam, and which contains the sacred black stone set in silver. The Haram, the

sacred enclosure in which it is situated, is surrounded

on all sides by graceful colonnades, surmounted by

white domes, forming Mecca's sacred mosque.

On the day I made the sevenfold circumambulation it was crowded by thousands of pilgrims from all

parts of the East, eager to kiss the holy relic, access

MECCA AT LAST 219

to which was only to be had after a rough-and-tumble.

I succeeded a t last, and was glad to get out and away

from that scrimmage of excited devotees.

From the moment the pilgrim enters Mecca to the

time of his departure he is kept in a fever of excite-

ment and pious frenzy. Ceremony after ceremony

claims his constant and unfaltering attention. H e is

for hours wedged in amid swaying and seething

crowds.

One of the most arduous rites is that of passing

seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwa,

the alleged tombs of Hagar and Ishmael ; a distance

of perhaps three hundred yards, which is known as

the Sai Ceremony, and by which one may acquire

much merit. T h e road is not narrow but is constantly

crowded with pilgrims, so that one is hustled unmerci-

fully. Add to this prayers five times a day, and one

has not much time to see the sights of Mecca, though there is really not very much to see.

Moreover Ibn Saud has jealously banned all

diabolical amusements. Mecca is drier than

Milwaukee by many degrees, and to light a cigarette

is to call down anathemas from pious Moslims.

T h e most striking picture in Mecca is that ~ rov ided by the vivid and colourful life of its bazaars. The

most celebrated of these is the Soayqa, which occupies

WESTWARD MECCA

one side of the Haram, and which has a great reputa-

tion throughout the East for its fine silks, its wonderful

beadwork and its rich and choice perfumes. The latter are a necessity of life in Mecca, where the

sanitation of the rest-houses is nothing less than

execrable. Indeed scented woods have constantly to be burned in these overcrowded houses to keep down

the strong and constantly rising effluvia of over-

crowded humanity.

T h e purchase of an article in Mecca is scarcely the same sort of business as in Fifth Avenue or

Regent Street. Goods in the bazaars are unticketed, and if you fancy anything the merchant will ask six or eight times its value. Of course the turbaned

merchant well knows that you will at once depreciate

it, which you proceed to do, if you are skilful, with a flow of rhetoric which bamboozles him. But when

he has recovered he comes back at you with an

eloquence of praise for his goods worthy of a Hafiz.

SO it goes on until one or the other is exhausted.

On one occasion I bought a melon which the merchant assured me was " sweeter than the honeycombs on the hills of Paradise." On finding the inside blacker than

Eblis I returned it to the seller, who looked at me pityingly.

I C Oh, my unwise brother," he chanted, " the melon

MECCA AT LAST 22 I

was made by Allah. Why not complain to him about i t ? His house is hard by ! "

One might describe Mecca under Wahabi rule as

a Calvinistic city; the metropolis of the Moslim

purists. I t has no lighter side to its austerities.

Indeed, Mecca should be nothing else. Yet the very

weirdness of its crowded and enthusiastic life, and the

sight of thousands of devotees massed together from

all the lands of the East , cannot fail to arouse a

lasting sense of the picturesque and the devout never

to be effaced.

During my visit I had the privilege of a long

interview with His Majesty Ibn Saud, the Napoleon

of Arabia, from whom I learned much regarding the

conditions in the country. His hopes for the future

are great, and he speaks modestly of his victories over

the "unfaithful." But he undoubtedly has his hands

full with his own turbulent subjects, the Wahabis,

who are looked at askance in most Moslim' countries.

Will Mecca remain the metropolis of Islam?

That, I should say, entirely depends on the conduct

of its present occupants towards the thousands of

pilgrims who still regard it as the Rome of the East.

But it is of considerable significance to note that

the Grand Moslim Conference which I attended at

Mecca, has now definitely decided to have a railway


line laid between Jeddeh and Mecca, then to carry it farther north to Medina, and thus link up with the

famous Hijaz Railway.

A scheme of this kind would not only be of great

benefit to the pilgrims from the East and Egypt, but

has enormous commercial advantages. Trade could

then be opened with Iraq, Syria and even Egypt, for

no less than ~ o o , o o o devotees visit the Holy Cities

every year, and catering for their demands alone is a

good proposition. Yet the sightseer, the winter-

resort man, may not go to Mecca to escape the

English fog and mist, unless he is a pious Modim. And so at last ended my long pilgrimage. From life

I need nothing more. I have been to Mecca, the

cra'dle of my faith'.

INDEX

ABDULLAH, 101, 102 Ab'dur Rahman, .Amir, 90 Afghanistan, 11, 12, 32, 46,

49, 51, 54, 55, 79125 Akram Khan, 59, 60, 61, 62 Amanullah, H.M. Amir, 86,

87, 88, 89, go, 91, 95, 96 Aral, Sea of, 165, 166, 167 Aralsk, 165, 166 Aruni, 31-46 Asterabad, 173, 174

BAGHDAD, 201-7 Basra, 201, 202, 203, 207 Bokhara, 11, 13, 128, 129, 146 - , Amir of, 155, 156, 157 Bombay, 11, 201, 207-10

I ~ E E ~ R A DUN, p Dekka, 54, 81

FEISAL, H.M. KING, 203, 207 Ferghana, 157, 158, 159

HARIBULTAH, H.M. AMIR, 86, 87

Hcrat, 126, 129, 134 FIimalayas, I I-&

T B N SAUD, H.M., 219, 221 2

India, 5, 11, 12, 13, 44, 46, ' 49, 5'. 85, 87, 90

Iraq, 11, 193, 201-7

JABULUS SIRAJ, 84 Jallabad, 81 Jeddeh, 11,201,212,213,215,

216, 222 Jumma, The, 106-26 Jumrood, 54

KABUL, 48, 54, 55, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 89, 91, 92, g j , 99, 103, 116, 118, I49 - River, 64, 83, 97

Karachi, 11, 201, 207, 213 Karakum Nlountains, 13, 25 Kara-kum, Desert of , 130,

132, 133, I37 Keen, Colonel. 85 Kerbela, 11, 187 I<ershi, 154, 155 Khan Kui, 135 Khanay Qeen, 201 Kliiva, !30, 134-42 Khyber Pass, 49, 50, 53, 54,

551 62, 63, 791 80 Kirghiz, 131, 132, 133, 135,

136, 138, 142, 165, 167 ICizil Bullok, 167, 168 Kohat, 53 Krasnovodsk, 127, 141, 143,

I451 169, 1 3 K u g Aral, I 7 Kulti, 16

d 1 3

INDEX 334 b

Kurdistan, 188, 193-200 Kushk, 55, 126, 127, 130 Kyang plain, 25

LAHORE, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 22

Lahoul, 23, 24, 25 Leh, 22, 26 Ludak, 29, 30

MAHMOOD BAIG TURZI, SIR- DAR, 89, 90

Malakand, 78 Mecca. 21 1-22

1349 138 Meshad. 11. 174

151 17, 19, 30 Mosal, 201

NADIR KHAN, GENERAL, cy Nawab, Sir Abdul Qayum

Khan, 56 Nikolai, Island of, 168

OMAR K H A Y Y ~ M , 175, 176, '77, 178, 179-84

Orenburg, 155, 161, 165

Persia, 11, 185-92 Peshawar, 50, 53, 54, 55, 71,

76, 78, 79 Punjab, 13, 14 Punjshair valley, 97, , 100,

106

RAHMAT KHAN, 133, 139, 140, I47

Rask, 100, 106-27 ,

SALLM HUSAIN, 139, 140, 147 Samarkand, 129, 149, 159 Shah Baz, 132, 138, 139, 148,

149, 150 Shakadara, 97-100 Shakespeare, 179-84 Shubqadar, 53 Sultan Khan, 64 Sunjar, 59, 60

TASHKENT, 154, 155, 158, 161 Tash Kupri, 154 Teheran, 185, 186, 188 T u n g Lung Pass, 26 Turkestan, 126-64

YAKOTUT, 148 Yusufzai, 50

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